- Author
-
Maranghides, A.
- Title
- Wildland Urban Interface Fire Model.
- Coporate
- Worcester Polytechnic Inst., MA
- Report
-
Thesis,
December 1993,
156 p.
- Keywords
-
wildland fires
|
fire models
|
urban fires
|
case histories
|
fire hazard
|
heat transfer
|
validation
|
urban/wildland interface
- Identifiers
- Wildland Urban Interface (WUI); Wildland Urban Interface Fire Model (WUIFM); Vegetation Ignition Module (VIM); Structure Ignition Module (SIM); Oakland Hills fire, Oakland, California, October 20, 1991; BEHAVE; Node Concept; Structure Ignition Assessment Model (SIAM)
- Abstract
- The place where structures and wildland coexist is the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI). This thesis outlines the development of an integrated Wildland Urban Interface Fire Model (WUIFM) to assess the fire hazard of a given WUI. Two of the various modules needed for the integrated WUIFM have been developed in this thesis. The Vegetation Ignition Module (VIM) can be used to determine if and when a wildland fire will jump a fire break and ignite the vegetation on the other side taking into consideration wildland fuel, topographic, and climatological characteristics. The Structure Ignition Module (SIM) can be used to determine if and when the roof and wall of a structure will ignite in a WUI for a set of structural, topographical and wildland fuel characteristics. Lack of data prevented validation of the VIM. Both the VIM and the SIM require wildland fuel flammability and flame spread data obtained from BEHAVE, a computer code previously developed by the U.S.D.A. Forest Service. Preliminary validation, using field observations from the Black Tiger Fire, indicates that the SIM can predict structure ignition, though more validation work is needed. The modules currently available, the VIM and the SIM, can be used to predict fire propagation past a fire break and a structure's ignitability in a WUI giving the user a partial understanding of the relative fire hazards associated with various WUIs.