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Experimental Study on Downslope Fire Spread over a Pine Needle Fuel Bed

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Abstract

The downslope fire represents a percentage of wildland fireline while the heat transfer mechanism of this process is poorly understood. In this study, the experiments were carried out in a fuel bed of dead pine needles with the slopes of − 30°, − 20°, − 10° and 0° for 0.4 and 0.8 kg/m2 fuel loads. Flame length, flame angle, temperatures over the fuel bed, flow speed at the fuel bed surface, radiation heat flux near the end of the fuel bed were measured. The rate of spread shows a parabolic shape which decreases firstly and then increases from 0° to − 30°. The combustion interface, reconstructed from the temperature histories of two vertical thermocouples, was perpendicular to the fuel bed under all slope conditions for two fuel loads. The measured radiation heat flux is higher at − 30° slope than level ground, which is attributed to higher flame emissivity. A quasi-physical model was developed to describe the heat transfer mechanism of downslope fire spread. The calculation results show that the flame radiation dominated the downslope fire spread process and the combustion zone radiation should not be neglected in the near flame region.

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Acknowledgements

This work was sponsored by National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2016YFC0800100) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51576184). HX Chen was supported by Science and Technological Fund of Anhui Province for Outstanding Youth (No 1808085J21) and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central University (WK2320000036).

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  1. State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, Anhui, People’s Republic of China

    Zhuo Yang, Hongmin Zhang, Linhe Zhang & Haixiang Chen

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  1. Zhuo Yang
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  2. Hongmin Zhang
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  3. Linhe Zhang
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  4. Haixiang Chen
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Correspondence to Haixiang Chen.

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Yang, Z., Zhang, H., Zhang, L. et al. Experimental Study on Downslope Fire Spread over a Pine Needle Fuel Bed. Fire Technol 54, 1487–1503 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10694-018-0740-0

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