Wildland Fire Dynamics

Description

Wildland fires are among the most complicated environmental phenomena to model. Fire behavior models are commonly used to predict the direction and rate of spread of wildland fires based on fire history, fuel, and environmental conditions; however, more sophisticated computational fluid dynamic models are now being developed. This quantitative analysis of fire as a fluid dynamic phenomenon embedded in a highly turbulent flow is beginning to reveal the combined interactions of the vegetative structure, combustion-driven convective effects, and atmospheric boundary layer processes. This book provides an overview of the developments in modeling wildland fire dynamics and the key dynamical processes involved. Mathematical and dynamical principles are presented, and the complex phenomena that arise in wildland fire are discussed. Providing a state-of-the-art survey, it is a useful reference for scientists, researchers, and graduate students interested in wildland fire behavior from a broad range of fields.

Kevin Speer is a professor and Director of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Institute at Florida State University, with experience in field and laboratory measurements of turbulent geophysical flows. He recently developed a new program in Fire Dynamics at Florida State University which combines the fields and faculty of numerous departments, including Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences; Mathematics; Scientific Computing; Statistics; Physics; and Engineering. Scott Goodrick is a research meteorologist with the US Forest Service Southern Research Station and serves as Director of the Station's Center for Forest Health and Disturbance in Athens, GA. He has been working as a research scientist with the Forest Service, specializing in fire-atmosphere interactions and smoke management, for 18 years. Prior to joining the US Forest Service, Scott spent 4 years as the fire weather meteorologist for the state of Florida, helping to develop their Fire Management Information System.