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Wildland Fire Rate of Spread

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Encyclopedia of Wildfires and Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fires

Synonyms

Fire front velocity; Fire speed; Rate of fire spread; Rate of forward spread; Rate of progression

Definition

Rate of spread is a measure of the speed of progression of a fire perimeter and can be expressed as the forward, backing, or flanking speed relative to the direction of the prevailing wind driving fire spread. Other measures such as rate of increase or growth of fire area or perimeter may also be used to quantify the rate of progression of a wildland fire.

Introduction

Knowledge about the progression of a wildland fire is essential to planning and conducting fire suppression actions, issuing warnings about the likely impact of the fire, and ensuring the safety of firefighters and the general public (Plucinski et al. 2017). Knowing how fast a wildland fire will spread is also essential for understanding potential impacts of planned prescribed burns. Of all the attributes of a wildland fire, the rate of spreadof the fire in the direction of the prevailing wind has...

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Correspondence to Andrew L. Sullivan .

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© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

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Sullivan, A.L., Gould, J.S. (2019). Wildland Fire Rate of Spread. In: Manzello, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Wildfires and Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fires. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51727-8_55-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51727-8_55-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-51727-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-51727-8

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