Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Weather, fuels, fire behavior, plumes, and smoke - the nexus of fire meteorology

Formally Refereed

Abstract

In a pair of review papers, Potter (2012a, 2012b) summarized the significant fire weather research findings over about the past hundred years. Our scientific understanding of wildland fire-atmosphere interactions has evolved: from simple correlations supporting the notion that hot, dry, and windy conditions lead to more intense fires, we have moved towards more mechanistic and physical descriptions of governing processes such as fuel moisture dynamics, wind-driven fire spread, the influence of vortices, and plume dynamics. Our advances are important not only for the sake of scientific knowledge but also for the sake of transferring new knowledge into applications for decisionmaking.

Keywords

fire meteorology, weather, fuels, fire behavior, smoke, management

Citation

Goodrick, Scott L.; Brown, Timothy J.; Jolly, W. Matt. 2017. Weather, fuels, fire behavior, plumes, and smoke - the nexus of fire meteorology. Fire Management Today. 75(1): 33-38.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/54902