A century of total fire suppression let fuel accumulate to dangerous levels — prescribed burns work by breaking up that continuous fuel before an uncontrolled ignition can exploit it.
spread_prob ~ fuel_load * (1 - management_breaks)
cellular-automaton fire spread
- Forest grid size — forest cells tracked for fuel load and burn state.
- Prescribed-burn management — fraction of the forest managed with fuel-reduction prescribed burns.
- Fuel load / drought — how much dry fuel has accumulated, driven by drought and fire-suppression history.
- Ignition rate — how often a new ignition (lightning, human-caused) starts a fresh spread event.
Indigenous cultural burning and modern prescribed-fire programs both work on the same principle this grid shows: breaking fuel continuity ahead of time prevents the catastrophic mega-fires that unmanaged fuel buildup enables.