Emulating fire propagation by using cellular nonlinear networks

In this paper a new approach based on Cellular Nonlinear Networks (CNNs) for modeling the diffusion of forest fires is presented. Based on a model relying on an hyperbolic reaction-diffusion equation, the proposed approach exploits the peculiarity of CNNs allowing the investigation of different types of forest fires, also considering specific morphological characteristics of the terrain and the presence of external perturbations like wind flows. Results show the emergence of particular phenomena really observed in wildfires, allowing to assess the validity of the approach.