{"id":3471,"date":"2019-05-02T09:00:48","date_gmt":"2019-05-02T07:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inra.fr\/afs\/?p=3471"},"modified":"2019-04-29T16:55:00","modified_gmt":"2019-04-29T14:55:00","slug":"the-10-wind-speed-rule-of-thumb-for-estimating-a-wildfires-forward-rate-of-spread-in-forests-and-shrublands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/afs\/2019\/05\/02\/the-10-wind-speed-rule-of-thumb-for-estimating-a-wildfires-forward-rate-of-spread-in-forests-and-shrublands\/","title":{"rendered":"The 10% wind speed rule of thumb for estimating a wildfire\u2019s forward rate of spread in forests and shrublands"},"content":{"rendered":"<script type='text\/javascript' src='https:\/\/d1bxh8uas1mnw7.cloudfront.net\/assets\/embed.js'><\/script><p align=\"justify\">The collective analysis of a relatively large number of wildfire observations documented in conifer forests, dry eucalypt forests and temperate shrublands revealed that the forward rate of fire spread is roughly 10% of the average 10-m open wind speed, provided both are expressed in the same units (e.g. km h \u22121 ).<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><strong>Context<\/strong> Knowledge of a wildfire\u2019s forward spread rate is a prerequisite for defining adequate fire suppression strategies and to ensure timely public warnings.<br \/>\n<strong>Aims<\/strong> We wanted to investigate the possibility that a simple relationship exists that could be used as a first approximation for quickly estimating a wildfire\u2019s spread rate simply from the open wind speed alone.<br \/>\n<strong>Methods<\/strong> We analysed data from a number of high-intensity wildfire observations (n = 118) documented in temperate shrublands, Australian dry eucalypt forests and North American conifer forests to examine the suitability and soundness of a relationship between wind speed and rate of fire spread. We also contrasted the performance of the best function against established fire spread rate models for the three fuel types.<br \/>\n<strong>Results<\/strong> The resulting rule of thumb is that the forward rate of spread of wildfires burning in forests and shrublands in relatively dry conditions is approximately equal to 10% of the average 10-m open wind speed, where both values are expressed in the same units.<br \/>\n<strong>Conclusion<\/strong> The rule of thumb gives the most accurate results for dry fuel and high wind speed conditions with reduced bias and mean relative errors lower than 50%. Under these conditions, the error statistics are comparable to those obtained by the established fire spread rate models. The rule is not applicable to grasslands.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Keywords<\/strong><br \/>\nConifer forest, Crown fire, Dry eucalypt forest, Fine dead fuel moisture content, Fire behaviour, Temperate shrubland<\/p>\n<div class='altmetric-embed' data-badge-type='donut' data-doi='10.1007\/s13595-019-0829-8'  style='float: right; ' ><\/div>\n<p><strong>Publication<\/strong><br \/>\nCruz, M.G. &amp; Alexander, M.E. Annals of Forest Science (2019) 76: 44. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s13595-019-0829-8\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s13595-019-0829-8<\/a><\/p>\n<p>For the read-only version of the full text: <a href=\"https:\/\/rdcu.be\/bzuz9\">https:\/\/rdcu.be\/bzuz9<\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><strong>Data availability<\/strong><br \/>\nThe datasets generated and\/or analysed during the current study are available as electronic supplementary material.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The collective analysis of a relatively large number of wildfire observations documented in conifer forests, dry eucalypt forests and temperate shrublands revealed that the forward rate of fire spread is roughly 10% of the average 10-m open wind speed, provided both are expressed in the same units (e.g. km h \u22121 ). Context Knowledge of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-type","category-research-paper","cat-14-id","cat-15-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/afs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/afs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/afs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/afs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/afs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/afs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/afs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/afs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/afs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}