Firestorm: The Forest Fire Simulation Program

As its subtitle states, Firestorm is a forest fire simulation — the first
in a series of similar games by Cricket Software, in which you control ground
and air based forces to fight forest fires in realtime.

After starting the game, you see the map where the action takes place — a
top-down view of 180,000 acres of forested coastland somewhere in the
Northwest, containing mountains and hills, roads and buildings, rivers and a
lake. You now start with setting up the situation, placing up to five fires
and initializing the wind direction. Both may be done randomly by the computer
or manually by you.

After pressing the GO button the real action begins: The fires start to slowly
spread out, influenced by wind and terrain, and you have to control your four
fire crews and two air tankers to prevent it. The fire crews can be used to
cut fire-lines in the forests, preventing fire propagation, but you first have
to move them near the fire, so be sure to let your ground crew use the roads.
The two air tankers at your disposal can drop lines of fire retardants which
will also stop the fire’s progression. After dropping the retardants, the air
units have to get back to their respective base for refueling, which takes
some time.

You can pause the simulation at any time to think about your next move. The
game is highly configurable — you can change the speed of fire crews, air
units and of the fire, and you can select the air units’ refueling and their
retardants’ drop time before starting the game. Wind parameters can be
switched from manual to automatic anytime during the game. The game is
entirely mouse-controlled.

Firestorm turns out to be a simple, yet realistic and immersive simulation
of fighting forest fires, requiring rapid decision and strategic skill.

Firestorm: The Forest Fire Simulation Program