Surface Fires: No Wind, No Slope, Marginal Burning

Jacques-Henri Balbi (1) , D.X. Viegas (2) , Carlos Rossa (2) , Jean-Louis Rossi (3) , François-Joseph Chatelon (1) , Dominique Cancellieri (4) , Albert Simeoni (5) , Thierry Marcelli (1)

1 Feux de Forêt
2 ADAI - Center of Studies on Forest Fires
3 SPE - Sciences pour l'environnement
4 Feux
5 Centre for Fire Safety Engineering

The first aim of this work is to provide an analytical expression to calculate the rate of spread of surface fires under no wind and no slope conditions. A previous simplified model was improved for this particular case of fire propagation. The test of this proposed model was performed by using two complete sets of experimental results with several fuel beds and variable parameters such as moisture content or bulk density. The second aim of this article is to highlight two conditions that allow stopping a fire: the low leaf area and the high value of the moisture content.

Mots clés: Surface fire spread; marginal burning; extinction conditions

Domaines: Thermique [physics.class-ph]; Thermique [physics.class-ph]; Sciences de l'environnement

Jacques-Henri Balbi, D.X. Viegas, Carlos Rossa, Jean-Louis Rossi, François-Joseph Chatelon, et al.. Surface Fires: No Wind, No Slope, Marginal Burning. Journal of Environmental Science and Engineering A, 2014, 3 (2), pp.73-86. ⟨hal-01070946⟩