The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry uses amphibious airtankers to help control forest fires in the province of Ontario. Their airtankers are based at airports from which they are dispatched to fires to assist FireRanger crews that work on the ground. Airtanker systems can be modelled as spatial queueing systems with fires as customers that arrive at rates that vary over both time and space and airtankers as mobile servers that fight fires at spatially dependent service rates. In order to model the airtanker service process one must know how much time airtankers spend travelling to and from and dropping water on fires. We developed a methodology for processing historical fire, airport location and on-board airtanker tracking GPS data to identify the key events that take place while airtankers are involved in fire suppression operations. We used that data to develop detailed models that describe how airtankers participate in the initial attack process. Those models can be incorporated in strategic, tactical and operational airtanker management decision support systems. We conclude by suggesting that our methodology be extended to model the use of transport helicopters, trucks and heavy equipment in fire suppression, and the activities of FireRanger crews on the ground.

安大略省自然资源和林业部使用两栖空中加油机帮助控制安大略省的森林大火。他们的空中加油机设在机场，他们从那里被派往大火，以协助在地面工作的FireRanger机组人员。可以将Airtanker系统建模为具有以下问题的空间排队系统：当客户到达时空的速率随时间变化而发生火灾时，将空罐商建模为以空间依赖的服务费率扑灭火灾的移动服务器。为了对空中加油机的服务过程进行建模，必须知道空中加油机要花多少时间往返于火上以及在火上滴水。我们开发了一种处理历史火灾的方法，机场位置和机载空中加油机跟踪GPS数据，以识别空中加油机参与灭火操作时发生的关键事件。我们使用这些数据来开发详细的模型，以描述空中加油机如何参与初始攻击过程。这些模型可以并入战略，战术和作战空中加油机管理决策支持系统中。最后，我们建议扩展我们的方法，以模拟运输直升机，卡车和重型设备在灭火中的使用，以及FireRanger机组人员在地面上的活动。