Use of the Wildland-urban interface Fire Dynamics Simulator to Model Fire Spread in Chamise Chaparral Fuel Beds

摘要

The ability of WFDS to simulate fire spread in fuel beds composed of living plant material < 0.63 cm diameter was evaluated using 58 laboratory fires. Homogenous fuel beds composed of chamise (Adenostoma fasciculatum), a common chaparral plant species, were burned under various wind velocity and slope angle configurations. Fire spread successfully in 35 of 58 experimental fuel beds. WFDS simulations using a linear thermal degradation model and no char combustion only produced successful fire spread in one of the 58 simulations. Simulations using an Arrhenius-based thermal degradation model and using char combustion correctly modeled spread success in nine of eleven laboratory fires. As expected, given the differences in the models, the gas phase temperatures in the fuel beds were much higher when the Arrhenius model was used. Results of this first use of the Arrhenius-based thermal degradation model in WFDS are promising.