# Physics-guided spatiotemporal neural models for fuel density prediction

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.06999 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.06999/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 8 of its 18 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 8 Jul 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [ViViT: A Video Vision Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.15691/) (2021)
- [Convolutional LSTM Network: A Machine Learning Approach for Precipitation Nowcasting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.04214/) (2015)
- [FourCastNet: A Global Data-driven High-resolution Weather Model using Adaptive Fourier Neural Operators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.11214/) (2022)
- [Adaptive Fourier Neural Operators: Efficient Token Mixers for Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.13587/) (2021)
- [Deep Learning Models for Predicting Wildfires from Historical Remote-Sensing Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.07445/) (2020)
- [Physics-Informed Machine Learning Simulator for Wildfire Propagation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.06825/) (2020)
- [Prescribed Fire Modeling using Knowledge-Guided Machine Learning for Land Management](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.01593/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

This paper presents a physics-guided machine learning (PGML) framework for fuel density prediction, integrating physics constraints and domain knowledge into deep learning models to enhance model accuracy and stability. We explore three deep learning architectures -- ConvLSTM, Adaptive Fourier Neural Operator (AFNONet), and Video Vision Transformer (ViViT) -- to model the spatiotemporal evolution of fuel density. Our approach incorporates differentiable physics-informed terms in the loss function, including a mass-conserving fuel transport term and a rate-of-spread estimation. Experimental results, averaged across multiple independent trials, demonstrate that the proposed PGML framework outperforms purely data-driven baselines without physics constraints in both accuracy and stability. This framework enables computationally efficient, physically plausible fire forecasting to support adaptive prescribed burn management.