A conceptual framework for ranking crown fire potential in wildland fuelbeds.

Abstract

This paper presents a conceptual framework for ranking the crown fire potential of wildland fuelbeds with forest canopies. This approach extends the work by Van Wagner and Rothermel, and introduces several new physical concepts to the modeling of crown fire behavior derived from the reformulated Rothemel surface fire modeling concepts proposed by Sandberg et al. This framework forms the basis for calculating the crown fire potentials of Fuel Characteristic Classification System (FCCS) fuelbeds. Two new crown fire potentials are proposed (i) the torching potential (TP) and (ii) the active crown potential (AP). A systematic comparison of TP and AP against field observations and Crown Fire Initiation and Spread (CFIS) model outputs produced encouraging results, suggesting that the FCCS framework might be a useful tool for fire managers to consider when ranking the potential for crown fires or evaluating the relative behavior of crown fires in forest canopies.

Citation

Schaaf, Mark D.; Sandberg, David V.; Schreuder, Maarten D.; Riccardi, Cynthia L. 2007. A conceptual framework for ranking crown fire potential in wildland fuelbeds. Canadian Journal of Forest Research. 37: 2464-2478