Operational crisis systems are widely known to aid management decisions by providing rational and quantitative information based on the site-specific circumstances and the possible consequences. Forest fire incidents are known to provoke irreparable damage to regions of utmost significance from the ecological point of view. The development of an operational system for managing such incidents is of great significance for the authorities and end-users. The most important component of such an operational system that efficiently manages wildland forest fires is a forest fire simulation tool. Such a simulation tool was developed to be based on two fold reasoning; a discrete contour propagation model for estimating fire consequences and a fuzzy/neural system for the estimation of fire spread as a function of influencing factors such as terrain characteristics, vegetation type and density and meteorological conditions. Modelling and simulation issues regarding the development of such a tool are discussed in detail. The tool was embedded to the operational system and estimations were derived for a typical Greek mountain forest in the region of Attica [Appl. Math. Modell. 28 (2004), this issue]. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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