Overview

Prometheus is a deterministic wildland fire growth simulation model based on the Fire Weather Index (FWI) and Fire Behaviour Prediction (FBP) sub-systems of the Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System (CFFDRS). The model computes spatially-explicit fire behaviour and spread outputs given heterogeneous fuel, topography and weather conditions. All spatial outputs are compatible with Geographic Information Systems. Learn more...

Prometheus is the result of a national project endorsed by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre and its members.

Alberta Forestry, Parks and Tourism is the lead agency, custodian and legal intellectual property rights holder of Prometheus & Prometheus COM.

Potential Applications

  • Forecasting wildland fire growth for operational decision support.
  • Assessing the effectiveness of alternative fuel management strategies.
  • Planning prescribed burns.
  • Providing forensic support for wildfire investigations.
  • Studying the role of fire in establishing and maintaining landscape patterns.
  • Providing spatial and temporal estimates of smoke emissions.
  • Examining the impact of climate change scenarios on area burned.
  • Supplementing fire behaviour training and education programs.

Prometheus COM

COM (Common Object Model) is Microsoft Windows programming standard that allows object-oriented COM components (Dynamic Link Libraries) to be re-used in different software applications and languages without sharing source code. Prometheus uses this component-based software architecture. The important principles of COM include:

  • Reuse of the component objects,
  • Interoperability of the binary standard,
  • Allowance for distributed capabilities.

Prometheus is engineered using five separate COMs. These COMs are called low-level interfaces and include:

  • FuelCOM
  • FWICOM
  • GridCOM
  • FireEngine
  • WeatherCOM

To facilitate the use of these low-level interfaces, an umbrella or wrapper COM was developed. This high-level interface is called PrometheusCOM. It provides a more user-friendly interface for programmers to communicate with the low level COMs. Examples of software applications that integrate PrometheusCOM components include Burn-P3, Pandora, Pegasus, and SFMS. COM Programmer's Documentation can be accessed on-line.