MATLAB: I am trying to run a forest fire simulation. However, when I run the following code in Matlab, the plot window is blank. What do i do

blank plot screenforest fire simulation

This is the code:
     function y = fire_sim(N,p)
     figure(1);
     %sets size of forest NxN
     C = ones(N,N);
     Z = zeros(N,N);
     x = 1:N;
     y = 1:N;
     %Set initial fire
     fires = [floor(N/2),floor(N/2)];
     [numfires,temp] = size(fires);
     for i = 1:numfires
         C(fires(i,1),fires(i,2))=2;
     end
     %Simulate spread
     maxsteps = 1000; %number of iterations to plot
     k=0;
     while k<maxsteps && numfires>0
         lastC = C;
         numfires_next = 0;
         fires_next = [];
         for i = 1:numfires
             if fires(i,1)~=1
                 if C(fires(i,1)-1,fires(i,2))==1
                     r = rand(1);
                     if r < p
                         numfires_next = numfires_next + 1;
                         C(fires(i,1)-1,fires(i,2))=2;
                         fires_next(numfires_next,:)=[fires(i,1)-1,fires(i,2)];
                     end
                 end
             end
             if fires(i,1)~=N
                 if C(fires(i,1)+1,fires(i,2))==1
                     r = rand(1);
                     if r < p
                         numfires_next = numfires_next + 1;
                         C(fires(i,1)+1,fires(i,2))=2;
                         fires_next(numfires_next,:)=[fires(i,1)+1,fires(i,2)];
                     end
                 end
             end
             if fires(i,2)~=1
                 if C(fires(i,1),fires(i,2)-1)==1
                     r = rand(1);
                     if r < p
                         numfires_next = numfires_next + 1;
                         C(fires(i,1),fires(i,2)-1)=2;
                         fires_next(numfires_next,:)=[fires(i,1),fires(i,2)-1];
                     end
                 end
             end
             if fires(i,2)~=N
                 if C(fires(i,1),fires(i,2)+1)==1
                     r = rand(1);
                     if r < p
                         numfires_next = numfires_next + 1;
                         C(fires(i,1),fires(i,2)+1)=2;
                         fires_next(numfires_next,:)=[fires(i,1),fires(i,2)+1];
                     end
                 end
             end
             C(fires(i,1),fires(i,2))=0;
         end
         surf(x,y,C,C);
         view(360,90);
         colormap([0 0 0; 0 1 0; 1 0 0])
         caxis([0 2]);
         axis([1,length(x),1,length(y),0,2])
         shading interp
         title(sprintf('Step = %.0f',k))
         drawnow;
         k=k+1;
         if sum(sum(abs(lastC-C)))==0
              break
         end
         fires = fires_next;
         numfires = numfires_next;
     end

Best Answer

The code works for me in R2014a. Run it like
fire_sim(300,.5);
A parameter of .5 creates some nice designs about half the runs (and dies out quickly the other half of the runs.)
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