Eur. Phys. J. B 15, 177-185 (2000)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s100510051113

Finite-size effects in the self-organized critical forest-fire model

¹ Physik-Department der Technischen Universität München, James Franck Straße, 85747 Garching
² Theory Group, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
³ iXOS Software AG, 85630 Grasbrunn, Germany

Received: 24 April 1999
Revised: 26 October 1999
Published online: 15 May 2000

Abstract

We study finite-size effects in the self-organized critical forest-fire model by numerically evaluating the tree density and the fire size distribution. The results show that this model does not display the finite-size scaling seen in conventional critical systems. Rather, the system is composed of relatively homogeneous patches of different tree densities, leading to two qualitatively different types of fires: those that span an entire patch and those that do not. As the system size becomes smaller, the system contains less patches, and finally becomes homogeneous, with large density fluctuations in time.