
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Catchpole, E. A. 
A1  - Catchpole, W. R. 
A1  - N.R.Viney, 
A1  - McCaw, W. L. 
A1  - Marsden-Smedley, J. B. 
T1  - Estimating fuel response time and predicting fuel moisture content from field data
JF  - International Journal of Wildland Fire
JO  - Int. J. Wildland Fire
Y1  - 2001
VL  - 10
IS  - 2
SP  - 215
EP  - 222
KW  - buttongrass moorland, Eucalyptus litter, equilibrium moisture content, fuel moisture content, mallee, response time, time-lag.
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1071/WF01011 
N2  - We develop a method for estimating equilibrium moisture content (EMC) and fuel moisture response time, using data collected for Eucalyptus twig litter. The method is based on the governing differential equation for the diffusion of water vapour from the fuel, and on a semi-physical formulation for EMC (Nelson 1984), based on the change in Gibbs free energy, which estimates the EMC as a function of fuel temperature and humidity. We then test the model on data collected in Western Australian mallee shrubland and in Tasmanian buttongrass moorland. This method is more generally applicable than those described by Viney and Catchpole (1991) and Viney (1992). The estimates of EMC and response time are in broad agreement with laboratory-based estimates for similar fuels (Anderson 1990a ; Nelson 1984). The model can be used to predict fuel moisture content by a book-keeping method. The predictions agree wellwith the observations for all three of our data sets. 
ER  -

