The continued eastward spread of mountain pine beetle (*Dendroctonus ponderosae* Hopk.; MPB) now threatens the boreal forests of eastern Alberta, Saskatchewan, and beyond. Predicting the outbreak and spread dynamics of this insect in jack pine, and to evaluate control measures to mitigate a potentially devastating loss of forest habitat and timber supply requires not only a complex understanding of the various inputs to this system and their interactions (e.g., MPB population dynamics, climate impacts, landscape features) but also the technical capacity to run large-scale spatial simulation models, and to update them quickly as new data are acquired and new models are developed. ...