Spotting is a wildfire behavior where burning embers, firebrands, or other hot material are carried by wind or convection ahead of the main fire front and ignite new fires outside the current fire perimeter.
Spotting is important because it can:
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Increase the spread rate, specially in passive crown fire (torching) conditions.
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Breach control lines or firebreaks.
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Start fires across roads, rivers, or cleared areas.
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Make containment much harder, especially in windy or dry conditions.
In Technosylva wildfire modeling workflows, spotting is implemented as a random process of new ignitions ahead the main fire front. The model uses the maximum spotting distance from wind-driven surface fires developed by (Albini 1983a; Albini 1983b; Chase 1984), together with some heuristic parameters.