Graduate Students

With support from Parks Canada, Anne-Claude Pépin, a graduate student at Université Laval, Quebec, is applying the Prometheus fire growth simulation model as part of her Master’s degree (Geography). Her thesis director is Martin Lavoie.  Anne-Claude attended the 3-day Prometheus course in Edmonton, March 25 – 27, 2009.

Lengyi Han is a PhD student in the Statistical and Actuarial Sciences Department at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario. Her supervisor is Dr. John Braun.  Lengyi will be investigating new approaches to incorporate stochasticity in the Prometheus model.

MITACS Project
Forest Fires and Spread in Heterogeneous Landscapes

Alberta SRD participated in the 10th PIMS (Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences) Industrial Problem Solving Workshop at Simon Fraser University, June 26 – 30, 2006. Two difficult problems requiring mathematical solutions were presented at the workshop.  As a result of the success of this workshop, Alberta SRD is continuing to engage the mathematics and statistics community through MITACS to continue research and development of world class fire management decision support tools to simulate fire growth.  MITACS (Mathematics of Information Technology and Complex Systems) provides a unique opportunity to collaboratively develop innovative mathematical solutions for modeling fire spread.  MITACS is recognized worldwide as an effective model for research and development in mathematical sciences. It is a federally funded Network of Centres of Excellence (NCE) in the mathematical sciences.

In 2007, Dr. Thomas Hillen from the University of Alberta submitted a collaborative research project proposal to MITACS entitled, "Forest Fires and Spread in Heterogeneous Landscapes".  This proposal which was accepted and awarded funding by MITACS, includes research in the following areas:

1. Incorporating randomness in the Prometheus model
            Dr. John Braun, University of Western Ontario
            Dr. David Martell, University of Toronto

2. Delooping and the Marker Method
            Dr. Chris Bose, University of Victoria

3. Level Set Methods
            Dr. Anne Bourlioux, University of Montreal

4. Diffusion Models
            Dr. Thomas Hillen, University of Alberta

5. Management and Optimization
            Dr. David Martell, University of Toronto
            Dr. John Braun, University of Western Ontario

GEOIDE Strategic Investment Initiative
Stochastic Modeling of Forest Dynamics

This research proposal brings together a team of statisticians and forestry researchers to address mathematical and statistical problems in forest ecology and forest management.  One of the projects entitled “PROMETHEUS and Fire Spread” addresses the need to incorporate randomness into the Prometheus model.  The research team co-leaders include:

Charmaine Dean, Simon Fraser University
Spatio-temporal data analysis

David Martell, University of Toronto
Fire management systems

John Braun, University of Western Ontario
Statistical theory and applications

Statistical approaches to randomizing Prometheus involving local smoothing and block-re-sampling of input data will be refined, using additive smoothing models which include indicator variables for fuel type variables.  Automatic smoothing parameter selection using cross-validation will be studied and implemented.  Other stochastic approaches will also be investigated.

New 2D and 3D Views

New graphic user interfaces are under development for both the 2D and 3D map views.  In Version 5.2.2, the 3D map view has been deactivated.  The new map views will be included in Version 6.0.

Prometheus Tutorial

A new Prometheus tutorial for use by beginners or users who need a refresher course is integrated in Prometheus Version 5.2.2.  This tutorial provides easy instruction and video demonstrations to help users get started and run a simulation. 

Development and Structure of Prometheus: the Canadian Wildland Fire Growth Simulation Model