Mathematical Modeling of Canopy Forest Fire Spread in the Presence of Fire Breaks and Barriers

Abstract

In this paper, we studied the spreading of canopy forest fires in the presence of fire breaks and barriers consisting of hardwood trees by mathematical modeling. Mathematically, this problem is reduced to solving Reynolds equations for a turbulent flow with allowance for chemical reactions. The control volume method was used to obtain a discrete analogue. Using numerical calculations, we obtained distributions of the fields of velocity, temperature, oxygen concentrations, volatile products of pyrolysis and combustion, and volume fractions of the condensed phase. The modeling allowed obtaining contours of the spread of canopy forest fires that depend on the stock and types of forest combustible materials, moisture content, wind speed and direction, etc. We were also able to determine the dependence of the size of fire breaks and barriers on the above parameters, at which a canopy fire stops spreading.