Citation: Ghodrat, M.; Shakeriaski, F.; Fanaee, S.A.; Simeoni, A. Software-Based Simulations of Wildfire Spread and Wind-Fire Interaction. Fire 2023, 6, 12. https://doi.org/10.3390/fire6010012 Academic Editors: Xiaolei Zhang, Congling Shi, Chao Ding and Yanfu Wang Received: 26 October 2022 Revised: 29 November 2022 Accepted: 29 December 2022 Published: 31 December 2022 Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). fire Review Software-Based Simulations of Wildfire Spread and Wind-Fire Interaction Maryam Ghodrat 1, * , Farshad Shakeriaski 1 , Sayyed Aboozar Fanaee 2 and Albert Simeoni 3 1 School of Engineering and Information Technology, University of New South Wales Canberra, Canberra, ACT 2610, Australia 2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Birjand, Birjand 97175615, Iran 3 Department of Fire Protection Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA 01609, USA * Correspondence: m.ghodrat@unsw.edu.au Abstract: Wildfires are complex phenomena, both in time and space, in ecosystems. The ability to understand wildfire dynamics and to predict the behaviour of the propagating fire is essential and at the same time a challenging practice. A common approach to investigate and predict such phenomena is making the most of power of numerical models and simulators. Improved and more accurate methods for simulating fire dynamics are indispensable to managing suppression plans and controlled burns, decreasing the fuel load and having a better assessment of wildfire risk mitigation methodologies. This paper is focused on the investigation of existing simulator models applicable in predicting wildfire spread and wind fire interaction. The available software packages are outlined with their broad range of applications in fire dynamic modeling. Significance of each work and associated shortcomings are critically reviewed. Finally, advanced simulations and designs, accurate assumptions, and considerations for improving the numerical simulations, existing knowledge gaps in scientific research and suggestions to achieve more efficient developments in this area are revisited. Keywords: wildfire simulation review; fire spread; wind-fire interaction; software packages 1. Introduction Wildfires are a recurrent natural hazard in Australia, as in many areas worldwide [1–3]. There have been numerous occasions causing substantial loss of life and property in Australia in recent decades [4–7]. 2019/20 Australia’s bushfire, the Black Summer fires, burnt nearly 48 million acres, destroyed more than 3000 dwellings, and killed 34 people and an estimated 1 billion animals. Some endangered species, the vast majority being reptiles, was believed to be driven to extinction [8]. One study estimated that 480 million animals in NSW may have been killed already, either during blazes afterward from lack of food, water, and shelter or increased risk of predation. Wildfire is a complex heat release process, which is a combination of combustion, trans- fer of energy to adjacent unburnt fuel, and the continuous ignition of that fuel. Combustion is associated with the chemistry of the process and happens at the molecular scale. Energy transfer to the adjacent fuel, on the other hand, is linked to the physics of the problem and happens at a wide range of scales. The interaction of these processes over wide ranges of spatial and temporal scales makes modeling of wildfire a highly challenging task. For example, Ronchi, and Johansson [9,10] conducted a detailed review of different wildfire spread modeling techniques. Different analysis conducted in the past years indicates a continuous attempt that ranges from analytical investigations to experimental studies. Analytical simulations are more related to the basic knowledge of chemistry and physics in fuel ignition. While experimental studies are more or less related to the phenomenological definition of fire behavior. Although in the last thirty years, a fairly large number of fire experiments have been conducted, numerical simulation using computer simulators has some benefits over experiments in the prediction of structures affected by the fire. The major Fire 2023, 6, 12. https://doi.org/10.3390/fire6010012 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/fire