A GPU Numerical Implementation of a 2D Simplified Wildfire Spreading Model

Wildfires are a latent problem worldwide that every year burns thousands of hectares, negatively impacting the environment. To mitigate the damage, there is software to support wildfire analysis. Many of these computational tools are based on different mathematical models, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. Unfortunately, only a few of the software are open source. This work aims to develop an open-source GPU implementation of a mathematical model for the spread of wildfires using CUDA. The algorithm is based on the Method of Lines, allowing it to work with a system of partial differential equations as a dynamical system. We present the advantages of a GPU versus C and an OpenMP multi-threaded CPU implementation for computing the outcome of several scenarios.