Fire Risk Reduction Research Articles

A Decision Support System for forest fire management

Forest fires are considered natural phenomena but the magnitude of the problem can be attributed to poor forest management and to the extreme weather conditions. Furthermore, the abolishment of traditional activities related to forests has sent away people from the forests that they used to protect them. The aforementioned reasons result in the annual destruction of large forest areas, agricultural cultivations, industries, animals and even human lives. At the same time, catastrophic floods entail the gradual desolation of the affected areas and large amounts of carbon dioxide along with smoke particles aggravate air quality. In the present paper, a Decision Support System is proposed capable to support policy makers and services to counteract wildfires destruction danger in lowland Pine forests. The system is composed of two major components: (a) A Wildfire Destruction Danger Index useful for preventive and suppressive measures planning and decision policy making and (b) a Forest Management Planning Decision Support System useful for fire risk reduction through forest management plan. The open architecture of the system allows incorporation of data coming from external sources e.g. satellite systems, meteorological stations etc. All its subsystems can stand alone so as to satisfy the needs of responsible organisations (peripheral institutions of fire brigade, forest inspection and local authorities). The proposed system can be both used as an intergraded operational tool in forest fire management and as a training tool for personnel of various services involved.

Placing Blame

Some interesting parallels can be found between upholstery, flammability and malicious code — most particularly the impact that consumer behaviour has on both. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission is considering legislation that will force furniture manufacturer's to adopt federal flameproof standards that will result in the reduction of upholstery fire risk from candles and lighters among others. Not surprisingly, the National Association of State Fire Marshals petitioned for the standards. What is somewhat surprising is that the American Furniture Manufacturers Association has endorsed the plan 1 1 One pleasant side affect for the AFMA? It will put a damper on foreign imports — currently 14% of a $12.3 billion market. .

Spatial and temporal pattern of white spruce regeneration within mixed‐grass prairie in the Spruce Woods Provincial Park of Manitoba

AimThirty white spruce [Picea glauca (Moench) Voss] islands were sampled to study the temporal and spatial pattern of white spruce regeneration at its southern limit of distribution.LocationThe study was conducted within three mixed‐grass prairies in the Spruce Woods Provincial Park (SWPP) of south‐western Manitoba.MethodsWhite spruce seedlings, saplings and trees were mapped and measured in relation to eight sectors and five zones delimited by four transect lines extending through the centre of each island oriented north to south, west to east, north‐west to south‐east and north‐east to south‐west.ResultsTemporal patterns of regeneration were negatively correlated with July temperature at the time of establishment and up to 30 years after establishment. Height growth of seedlings and saplings were also negatively correlated with July temperature. Seedlings, saplings and trees were concentrated on the north vs. south aspect and within 4–12 m from the island centre. Seedlings grew almost exclusively in association with creeping juniper (Juniperus horizontalis Moench).Main conclusionsResults of the study suggest that white spruce recruitment and growth reflect past climatic variation, and microclimatic and microsite conditions promoting soil moisture retention and/or fire risk reduction facilitate white spruce germination and establishment.

The JA home team design of the ITER ECRF power supply system

This paper describes the JA home team design of the ITER ECRF power supply system whose capacity is 200 MVA. The system has 16 power supply units to drive 68 gyrotrons with total radio frequency power of 68 MW for plasma heating, current drive and plasma start-up. Each unit drives gyrotrons with energy recovery system to achieve higher than 50% of efficiency. The gyrotron fast protection system is based on a 70 kV, 100 A fast Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT) switch composed of 70 IGBTs connected in series. The breaking capability of this switch is 360 A with a protection time less than 10 μs. The estimated short circuit energy, in case of load fault, is 0.26 joule which is far below the allowable energy of 10 joule. The main power supply output voltage control is done by a.c. thyristor voltage regulator with state feedback control and feedforward control of beam current and voltage of the input a.c. line. In the layout design, the reduction of fire escalation risk is taken into account. The total space needed for the installation is 35 m×200 m for outdoor and 25 m×90 m for indoor.