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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Contents Vol 18(5)

Effect of vegetation heterogeneity on radiative transfer in forest fires

François Pimont A D , Jean-Luc Dupuy A , Yves Caraglio B and Dominique Morvan C
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A INRA (Institut National pour la Recherche Agronomique), UR 629 Ecologie des Forêts Méditerranéennes, Equipe de Physique et Ecologie du Feu, Domaine Saint Paul, Site Agroparc, F-84914 Avignon Cedex 9, France.

B CIRAD (Centre de coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement), Unité de Modélisation des Plantes TA40/PS2, F-34398 Montpellier, France.

C UNIMECA, 60 rue Joliot Curie, Technopôle de Château Gombert, F-13453 Marseille Cedex 13, France.

D Corresponding author. Email: pimont@avignon.inra.fr

International Journal of Wildland Fire 18(5) 536-553 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF07115
Submitted: 21 August 2007  Accepted: 22 October 2008   Published: 10 August 2009

Abstract

Wildland fires are driven by the heat transferred from the fire source to the unburned fuel bed and this transfer is likely to be affected by the spatial heterogeneity of fuel element distributions at different scales from shoot to stand. In a context of theoretical fire modelling, we investigated the impact of a departure from randomness of fuel distributions on the radiative transfer of energy. Our methodology was derived from the approach developed for solar radiation in heterogeneous canopies or clouds and was modified to suit an analysis of fire behaviour. Some fine and coarse fuel distributions for several Mediterranean fuel types were derived from field measurements and plant architecture modelling. A comparison of the average irradiances in different fuels showed whether heterogeneity effects were significant or not. Results showed that both marked spatial variability in fuel distribution (low cover fraction and large clumps) and a high vegetation density were required to provide significant effects. The radiative transfer in heterogeneous maritime pines and in dense shrub stands was significantly affected by heterogeneity, mainly at crown and shoot scales. Less pronounced effects were observed in Aleppo pine stand and light shrubs. In terms of fuel modelling, the 2-m resolution used in a fire model such as FIRETEC seems to be sufficient for the fuel types investigated here, with the exception of dense small clumps in shrublands. An effective coefficient was proposed for these latter cases.

Additional keywords: fuel modelling, physically-based model, plant architecture, shoot clumping, STAR.


Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the two anonymous reviewers who greatly contributed to improving the present paper. This study has been partially funded by the European Commission in connection with the FIRE PARADOX research program (6th Framework R&D Program of the European Union, 2006–2010).


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