Abstract
Aim of study: To develop a fuel moisture content (FMC) attenuation factor for empirical forest fire spread rate (ROS) models in general fire propagation conditions.Methods: The development builds on the assumption that the main FMC-damping effect is a function of fuel ignition energy needs.Main results: The generic FMC attenuation factor was successfully used to derive ROS models from laboratory tests (n = 282) of fire spread in no-wind and no-slope, slope-, and wind-aided conditions. The ability to incorporate the FMC attenuation factor in existing field-based ROS models for shrubland fires and grassland wildfires (n = 123) was also positively assessed.Research highlights: Establishing a priori the FMC-effect in field fires benefits the proper assessment of the remaining variables influence, which is normally eluded by heterogeneity in fuel bed properties and correlated fuel descriptors.
Highlights
Main results: The generic fuel moisture content (FMC) attenuation factor was successfully used to derive ROS models from laboratory tests (n = 282) of fire spread in no-wind and no-slope, slope, and wind-aided conditions
Many fire spread metrics can be analysed in the field of forest fire behaviour modelling, such as fuel time to ignition (Madrigal et al, 2011), flame residence time (Burrows, 2001), and flame geometry (Nelson & Adkins, 1988), spread rate (R) prediction is the focus of most studies
Model evaluation (Table 2) confirms these figures, with mean absolute error (MAE) and mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), respectively, in the range 0.06–0.19 m min-1 and 16.2–28.9%. fM testing with field fires showed highly significant correlations (p
Summary
Many fire spread metrics can be analysed in the field of forest fire behaviour modelling, such as fuel time to ignition (Madrigal et al, 2011), flame residence time (Burrows, 2001), and flame geometry (Nelson & Adkins, 1988), spread rate (R) prediction is the focus of most studies. Because of key limitations associated with physical models (Cruz et al, 2017), such as complexity and high computation time, support to fire management operations is and will continue to be based on empirically-based predictions for the foreseeable future (Sullivan, 2009). FM-functions are an exponential decay of the type exp(-b M) (Cheney et al, 1993; Fernandes, 2001), but a power law of the type
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