Fuel-related fire behaviour relationships for mixed live and dead fuels burned in the laboratory

A laboratory experimental program addressing fire spread in fuel beds composed of dead foliage litter and vertically placed quasi-live branches, representative of many natural fuel complexes, was carried out for either still air or wind conditions. Fuel bed characteristics, fire spread rate, flame geometry and fuel consumption were assessed and empirical models for estimating several parameters were developed. Weighted fuel moisture content (18–163%) provided good estimates of fire behaviour characteristics and accounted for most of the variation in still air and wind-driven spread rate (0.1–1.3 m min-1). When predicting still-air fire spread rate, fuel height was the most relevant fuel bed structural parameter and fuel type had significant influence, whereas for wind-driven spread the effect of foliar fuel bed density was dominant and fuel type became irrelevant. Flame length (0.4–2.2 m) increased from still air to wind-assisted (8 km h-1) fire spread but its height remained constant. The fraction of total fuel load and mean woody diameter consumed by fire were reasonably predicted from weighted fuel moisture content alone, but predictions for the latter variable improved substantially by adding foliar fuel load.

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