Modeling wildland fire containment with uncertain flame length and fireline width

We describe a mathematical model for the probability that a fireline succeeds in containing a fire. The probability increases as the fireline width increases, and also as the fire's flame length decreases. More interestingly, uncertainties in width and flame length affect the computed containment probabilities, and can thus indirectly affect the optimum allocation of fire-fighting resources. Uncertainty about the fireline width that will be produced can often affect containment chances as much as uncertainty in flame length.