Assignment Problems in Wildfire Suppression: Models for Optimization of Aerial Resource Logistics

Wildfire containment activities involve a combination of important decisions that affect the evolution of the fire and effective resource deployment. When aerial resources (in particular aircraft and helicopters) are used, two tasks are assigned to the aerial coordinator: the allocation of aerial resources to flight routes (circular paths that aerial resources follow such that they have common loading and discharge points) and refueling points. In this paper, we introduce two models of linear integer programming to execute these tasks. The models are written using AMPL and the Gurobi solver engine and illustrated through examples. The objective of these models is to provide automatic and rapid support for the coordination of the abovementioned tasks. In order to enhance the robustness of the models, the scheduling times and the characteristics of the aerial resources are also considered. These models aim at minimizing both the containment time of the fire and the total flight hours. The models will reduce the risk of aerial collision of resources by taking into account the maximum number of aerial resources that can simultaneously load water at the same point. Moreover, management of refueling points is also achieved.