Curvature effects in the dynamic propagation of wildfires
J. E. Hilton A D , C. Miller A , J. J. Sharples B and A. L. Sullivan C
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A CSIRO Data61, Private Bag 10, Clayton South, Vic. 3169, Australia.
B University of New South Wales, UNSW Canberra, PO Box 9716, Canberra BC 2610, Australia.
C CSIRO Land and Water, GPO Box 1700, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.
D Corresponding author. Email: james.hilton@csiro.au
International Journal of Wildland Fire 25(12) 1238-1251 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF16070
Submitted: 26 April 2016 Accepted: 22 August 2016 Published: 18 October 2016
Abstract
The behaviour and spread of a wildfire are driven by a range of processes including convection, radiation and the transport of burning material. The combination of these processes and their interactions with environmental conditions govern the evolution of a fire’s perimeter, which can include dynamic variation in the shape and the rate of spread of the fire. It is difficult to fully parametrise the complex interactions between these processes in order to predict a fire’s behaviour. We investigate whether the local curvature of a fire perimeter, defined as the interface between burnt and unburnt regions, can be used to model the dynamic evolution of a wildfire’s progression. We find that incorporation of curvature dependence in an empirical fire propagation model provides closer agreement with the observed evolution of field-based experimental fires than without curvature dependence. The local curvature parameter may represent compounded radiation and convective effects near the flame zone of a fire. Our findings provide a means to incorporate these effects in a computationally efficient way and may lead to improved prediction capability for empirical models of rate of spread and other fire behaviour characteristics.
Additional keywords: level set method, wildfire modelling, wind-driven fires.
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