Enhanced forest fire evacuation planning using real-time sensor and GPS algorithm

Abstract

Abstract Forest fires are the source of countless fatalities and extreme economic repercussions. The safe evacuation of residents of an area affected by forest fires is the highest priority of local authorities, and finding the most optimal course of action has been a primary research focus for years. Previous studies over several decades have attempted to find an optimal solution using the applications of bug navigation systems, road network reconfiguration, graph traversals, swarm optimization, etc. The author, with the motivation to prevent human casualties at the time of such calamity, presents a novel study which solves the problem in nearly linear time computation, surpassing the performance standards of previous research, and accommodates the unpredictability of the spread of forest fires. This includes a proposal of an algorithm which builds upon the application of Spielman and Teng’s Electrical Circuit Approach to solve for maximum flow in a network and implements this with real-time sensor and Global Positioning System input.