Wildfire resources management: a decision support tool created with R to solve optimisation models in logistics for fighting forest fires

Abstract

The first part of this work reviews several mathematical programming models dedicated to resource allocation and planning problems in the context of extinguishing large forest fires. These problems have been studied as part of the research projects Lumes and Enjambre, which involve both the public and private sectors in Spain. The objective of Lumes and Enjambre is to develop advanced technologies for fighting forest fires. Moreover, the projects address other tasks such as the design of algorithms to prevent aircraft collisions and estimating the perimeters of forest fires using techniques such as estimating sets from thermal images. The second part of this work is focused on the R package and corresponding graphic interface, Wildfire Resources Management (wrm), which are designed to offer a user-friendly model interface in terms of the introduction of the necessary data, resolution, and presentation of the results, according to the needs of the interlocutors in the company dedicated to the extinction of forest fires. The auxiliary package uses various solvers, such as symphony and gurobi. This work presents the various components of wrm (which can be viewed in the GitHub repository), a computational study, and a procedure for its use.