An effective response to bushfires relies on accurate predictions of fire behaviour, particularly the rate of spread, intensity and ‘spotting’. This field guide has been developed to provide a systematic method for assessing fuel hazard and predicting potential fire behaviour in dry eucalypt forest. It will assist in making vital decisions that ensure the protection of fire crews and the community. This guide integrates Project Vesta research findings with the Victorian Overall Fuel Hazard Guide and is applicable to dry eucalypt forests throughout southern Australia. Fuel assessment is based on the hazard scoring system employed during Project Vesta which investigated the effects of fuel age and understorey vegetation structure on fire behaviour in these forests. Information provided in this guide can be used to: Define and identify different fuel layers and components of fuel structure and hazard; Determine the hazard score of surface and near-surface fuel layers and the height of the near-surface fuel for fire spread prediction; Determine elevated fuel height for flame height prediction; and determine surface fuel hazard score and bark hazard score for spotting distance prediction. The Field Guide provides tables to predict the potential rate of spread of a bushfire burning in dry eucalypt forest under summer conditions, and can also be used to predict flame height and maximum spotting distance. The guide also allows users to determine the moisture content of fine dead fuels throughout the day, and to account for the effect of slope on the rate of spread of a fire.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Wildland Fire, Forest Dynamics, and Their Interactions" that was published in Forests

Wildland fires have an irreplaceable role in sustaining many of our forests, shrublands and grasslands. They can be used as controlled burns or occur as free-burning wildfires, and can sometimes be dangerous and destructive to fauna, human communities and natural resources. Through scientific understanding of their behaviour, we can develop the tools to reliably use and manage fires across landscapes in ways that are compatible with the constraints of modern society while benefiting the ecosystems. The science of wildland fire is incomplete, however. Even the simplest fire behaviours – how fast they spread, how long they burn and how large they get – arise from a dynamical system of physical processes interacting in unexplored ways with heterogeneous biological, ecological and meteorological factors across many scales of time and space. The physics of heat transfer, combustion and ignition, for example, operate in all fires at millimetre and millisecond scales but wildfires can become conflagrations that burn for months and exceed millions of hectares. Wildland Fire Behaviour: Dynamics, Principles and Processes examines what is known and unknown about wildfire behaviours. The authors introduce fire as a dynamical system along with traditional steady-state concepts. They then break down the system into its primary physical components, describe how they depend upon environmental factors, and explore system dynamics by constructing and exercising a nonlinear model. The limits of modelling and knowledge are discussed throughout but emphasised by review of large fire behaviours. Advancing knowledge of fire behaviours will require a multidisciplinary approach and rely on quality measurements from experimental research, as covered in the final chapters.

The Fire and Fuels Extension of the Forest Vegetation Simulator (FFE-FVS) was used to calulate the immediate effects of treatments on surface fuels, fire hazard, potential fire behavior, and forest structure for respresentative dry forest stands in the Western United States. Treatments considered included pile and burn and prescribed fire.

This report describes a new set of standard fire behavior fuel models for use with Rothermels surface fire spread model and the relationship of the new set to the original set of 13 fire behavior fuel models. To assist with transition to using the new fuel models, a fuel model selection guide, fuel model crosswalk, and set of fuel model photos are provided.

The book includes the contributions to the international conference “18th 3D GeoInfo”. The papers published in the book were selected through a double-blind review process. 3D GeoInfo has been the forum joining researchers, professionals, software developers, and data providers designing and developing innovative concepts, tools, and application related to 3D geo data processing, modeling, management, analytics, and simulation. A big focus is on topics related to data modeling for 3D city and landscape models as well as their many and diverse applications. This conference series is very successfully running since 2006 and has been hosted by countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, and Australia. In the period 2006 to 2017, the proceedings has been published by Springer in this series with Thomas H. Kolbe being the editor of the 2010 edition of the conference proceedings. 18th 3DGeoInfo was organized by Technical University of Munich in cooperation with the German Society for Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Geoinformation (DGPF), the local associations Runder Tisch GIS e.V. (Round Table GIS) and Leonhard Obermeyer Center—TUM Center of Digital Methods for the Built Environment, and the City of Munich. The international program committee consisted of committee members of previous 3D GeoInfo conferences and further leading scientists in the field of 3D Geoinformation Science.

Fire plays a key role in Earth system processes. Wildfires influence the carbon cycle and the nutrient balance of our planet, and may even play a role in regulating the oxygen content of our atmosphere. The evolutionary history of plants has been intimately tied to fire and this in part explains the distribution of our ecosystems and their ability to withstand the effects of natural fires today. Fire Phenomena and the Earth System brings together the various subdisciplines within fire science to provide a synthesis of our understanding of the role of wildfire in the Earth system. The book shows how knowledge of fire phenomena and the nature of combustion of natural fuels can be used to understand modern wildfires, interpret fire events in the geological record and to understand the role of fire in a variety of Earth system processes. By bringing together chapters written by leading international researchers from a range of geological, environmental, chemical and engineering disciplines, the book will stimulate the exchange of ideas and knowledge across these subject areas. Fire Phenomena and the Earth System provides a truly interdisciplinary guide that can inform us about Earth’s past, present and beyond. Readership: Advanced students and researchers across a wide range of earth, environmental and life sciences, including biogeochemistry, paleoclimatology, atmospheric science, palaeontology and paleoecology, combustion science, ecology and forestry.

Project Vesta was a comprehensive research project to investigate the behaviour and spread of high-intensity bushfires in dry eucalypt forests with different fuel ages and understorey vegetation structures. The project was designed to quantify age-related changes in fuel attributes and fire behaviour in dry eucalypt forests typical of southern Australia. The four main scientific aims of Project Vesta were: To quantify the changes in the behaviour of fire in dry eucalypt forest as fuel develops with age (i.e. time since fire); To characterise wind speed profiles in forest with different overstorey and understorey vegetation structure in relation to fire behaviour; To develop new algorithms describing the relationship between fire spread and wind speed, and fire spread and fuel characteristics including load, structure and height; and to develop a National Fire Behaviour Prediction System for dry eucalypt forests. These aims have been addressed through a program of experimental burning and associated studies at two sites in the south-west of Western Australia.