Differential inclusions and the control of forest fires (Q2464467)

In this paper, the area burned by a fire is modelled as the reachable set of a differential inclusion \(x'(t) \in F(x(t))\) starting from an initial set \(R_0\). To block the fire, a wall is constructed at a given speed. An optimization problem is considered which takes into account the value of the area destroyed by the fire and the cost of building the wall. In the first part of the paper, the problem of the existence of confining walls is studied. Finally, the author derives necessary conditions for optimality. Also, a classification of optimal arcs of the wall is presented.