Abstract
The prediction of fire behavior is of vital importance to all fire management planning and decisionmaking processes including fire prevention, presuppression planning, and fire use. The effect of slope on fire behavior is well acknowledged, yet its effect on fire behavior is not well accounted for. Determining the effects of slope on fire behavior under field conditions can prove invaluable and will allow for the testing of earlier studies conducted under laboratory conditions and help increase the accuracy of fire behavior prediction models. The present study was carried out in Kesan Forest Enterprise in the province of Edirne, Turkey (40°35’ N and 26°31’ E). Although the site was selected for its structural homogeneity, there was an apparent variation in the fuel loadings in different plots. Surface fine fuel (0 to 0.5 cm) loading ranged from 1.07 to 2.10 kg m–2, coarse fuel (0.6 to 2.5 cm) loading from 0.97 to 1.75 kg m–2, and total fuel loading from 1.52 to 5.67 kg m–2. Within the plots burned in this study slope ranged form 1 to 15 percent. Weather conditions during the burns were within the narrow range without wind speed. Air temperature ranged from 25.6 to 33.5 °C, relative humidity from 37 to 62 percent, and wind speed from 5.3 to 17 m min–1. Rate of spread ranged from 0.58 to 8.43 m min–1, fuel consumption from 1.02 to 2.30 kg m–2, and fire intensity from 134 to 2847.6 kW m–1. Of the fire behavior characteristics, rate of spread was related to wind speed, slope and moisture contents of live fuels, and fuel consumption was related to fuel loading and moisture contents of live fuels, whereas fire intensity was related to wind speed, slope and moisture contents of live fuels. Results obtained in this study should be invaluable in overall fire management practices, especially in the Mediterranean Region.
Parent Publication
Keywords
wildland fire management,
fire behavior,
maquis fuels,
weather,
slope,
Kesan Forest Enterprise,
Edirne,
Turkey
Citation
Saglam, Bulent; Bilgili, Ertugrul; Kucuk, Omer; Durmaz, Bahar Dinc; Baysal, Ismail. 2007. Preliminary results of fire behavior in maquis fuels under varying weather and slope conditions in turkey. In: Butler, Bret W.; Cook, Wayne, comps. The fire environment--innovations, management, and policy; conference proceedings. 26-30 March 2007; Destin, FL. Proceedings RMRS-P-46CD. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. CD-ROM. p. 249-254
