Next, the fire forecast
Being able to predict the spread of wildfires would have enormous benefits. Unfortunately, fires are even harder to forecast than the weather
WHERE there's smoke, there's fire. There may also be supercomputers, infra-red cameras, complicated mathematical models, wind tunnels and databases—all the paraphernalia required by anyone attempting to analyse and predict the behaviour of a wildfire as it spreads across the countryside. Despite years of research, however, the ability to make accurate and timely wildfire forecasts is still out of reach.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Next, the fire forecast”
From the August 19th 2000 edition
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