ABSTRACT
Fire spread research is multiobjective. Foresters are usually interested in obtaining reusable pragmatic information on: re dynamics, vegetation inammability, the impacts of forest res on vegetation, etc. Physicists (Curry and Fons 1938) rigorously study the physics-based mechanisms involved in re spreading. Using the terms and the models of thermodynamics, their aim is to fully understand what is a re and how it spreads. Chemists focus on fuel and gas properties (not on the dynamics of re spread). Computer scientists usually implement the numerical solutions of mathematical continuous equations (Grishin 1996) and/or manage databases of experiments and simulation results (McRae 1990). They can also build models on their own through mathematical analogs without any physical or chemical foundations [mainly
CONTENTS
18.1 Introduction ................................................................................................477 18.2 Thermal Degradation of Fuels in Chemistry ......................................... 478 18.3 Simulation Model and Mathematical Analogs of Physics-Based
Models ......................................................................................................... 481 18.3.1 Geometry of Fire Spread ............................................................... 482 18.3.2 Stochastic Wind Effects .................................................................483 18.3.3 Heat Inuence: Physics-Inspired and Chemistry-Based
Mathematical Analogs ..................................................................485 18.3.4 Fire Brands ...................................................................................... 489
18.4 Simulation Results ..................................................................................... 491 18.5 Discussion and Perspectives .................................................................... 492 References ............................................................................................................. 495
ellipses (Anderson et al. 1982; Glasa and Halada 2008) or cellular automata (Alexandridis et al. 2008)].
