Distributions of Time to First Spot Fire

In wildfire management, a spot fire is the result of an airborne ember igniting a separate fire away from the main wildfire. Under certain environmental and wildfire conditions, a burning ember can breach a fuel break, such as a river or road, and result in the production of a spot fire. This project derives distributions of the time to the first spot fire in various situations, and verifies them by simulation. To demonstrate the implementation of the distributions in practice, we incorporate a stochastic fire spread model. This research assesses the likelihood of spot fire occurring passed a fuel break, all while taking into account both spotting distance and spotting rate. This contrasts with the traditional approach that solely involves the maximal spotting distance, and can be a tool for fire management.