Our results show that the model’s ability to spot can be critical for modeling fire spread over barriers present in urban and wildland areas, such as highways and bodies of water. These numerical experiments demonstrate that the underprediction of simulated fire spreads, an issue often attributed to the fire behavior parameterization and fuel data inputs, can be also caused by the presence of containment barriers, which the model is currently unable to breach. Without a spotting capability, numerical models are limited in their role to provide tactical information to operational firefighters, guide land managers, and assist researchers to better understand the various processes and the result of their interactions. In turn, this affects our collective efforts to advance wildfire science, in that the representation of mechanisms of fire spread is incomplete, impacting all stakeholders that directly or indirectly rely on information produced by numerical models.