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Physical Parametrisation of Fire-Spotting for Operational Wildfire Simulators

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Applied Mathematics for Environmental Problems

Part of the book series: SEMA SIMAI Springer Series ((ICIAM2019SSSS,volume 6))

Abstract

Fire-spotting is strongly affected by mean wind and fire intensity, not only because they characterise the transport of firebrands, but, also, because they change the geometry of the flame, namely, the flame height and the flame length. Interdependencies between the flame length and the fire intensity are discussed in literature by a number of empirical relations. In the present study, the energy conservation principle and the energy flow rate in the convection column above the fire line are considered in order to establish the relation between the flame geometry and the fire line intensity in wildfires. Moreover, in opposition to literature, the derived formula allows for stating the rate of spread of the fire propagation in terms of the flame geometry factors by taking into account also the effects of the horizontal mean wind and the terrain slope. Numerical examples show that fire-spotting is strongly impacted by the flame geometry, which is specified by the fuel and vegetation, and then it cannot be neglected in the physical parametrisation of the phenomenon.

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Acknowledgements

This research is supported by the Basque Government through the BERC 2014-2017 and the BERC 2018-2021 programs and by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness MINECO through BCAM Severo Ochoa excellence accreditations SEV-2013-0323 and SEV-2017-0718 and through project MTM2016-76016-R ‘MIP’ and by the PhD grant ‘La Caixa 2014’.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Matemática Aplicada y Ciencias de la Computación, Universidad de Cantabria, Santander, Spain

    Vera N. Egorova

  2. CIMA Research Foundation, Savona, Italia

    Andrea Trucchia

  3. BCAM–Basque Center for Applied Mathematics, Bilbao, Spain

    Gianni Pagnini

  4. Ikerbasque–Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain

    Gianni Pagnini

Authors
  1. Vera N. Egorova
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  2. Andrea Trucchia
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  3. Gianni Pagnini
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gianni Pagnini .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain

    María Isabel Asensio

  2. University Institute SIANI, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain

    Albert Oliver

  3. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

    José Sarrate

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Egorova, V.N., Trucchia, A., Pagnini, G. (2021). Physical Parametrisation of Fire-Spotting for Operational Wildfire Simulators. In: Asensio, M.I., Oliver, A., Sarrate, J. (eds) Applied Mathematics for Environmental Problems. SEMA SIMAI Springer Series(), vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61795-0_2

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