Synonym
Definition
Fire intensity is defined as the rate of heat energy released by the fire, and more precisely, the energy released per unit time per unit area of actively burning fire is also called fire front (kW m−2). It is closely related to the amount of fuel available to burn.
Introduction
Fire intensity describes the combustion process of energy release from forest fuel during various phases of a fire. One of the problems with fire intensity is that it is often used incorrectly to evaluate fire impacts on vegetation, especially when the user restricts its usage to a single measure of energy output (Keeley 2009). The most useful descriptor used by fire managers and fire behavior scientists is the Byram’s fire intensity (Byram 1959), which is currently used as fireline intensity. For instance, fireline intensityhas become one of the standard criteria by which firefighters estimate the difficulty of controlling a wildfire. As fire effects cannot...
References
Alexander ME (1982) Calculating and interpreting forest fire intensities. Can J Bot 60:349–357. https://doi.org/10.1139/b82-048
Anderson HE (1969) Heat transfer and fire spread. USDA Forest Service, Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, research paper INT-69, Ogden
Andrews PL, Rothermel RC (1982) Charts for interpreting wildland fire behaviour characteristics. USDA Forest Service, Intermountain Forest Range Experiment Station, general technical report INT-131, Ogden
Burrows N (2015) Introduction to McArthur and Cheney’s article. Fire Ecol 11:1–9. https://doi.org/10.4996/fireecology.1101001
Byram GM (1959) Combustion of forest fuel. In: Davis KP (ed) Forest fire: control and use, 2nd edn. McGraw-Hill, New York, pp 61–89
Chatto K, Tolhurst KG (2004) A review of the relationship between fireline intensity and the ecological and economic effects of fire, and methods currently used to collect data. Department of Sustainability and Environment, Fire Management Branch, research report no. 67, Melbourne
Chetehouna K, Sero-Guillaume O, Sochet I, Degiovanni A (2008) On the experimental determination of flame front positions and of propagation parameters for a fire. Int J Therm Sci 47:1148–1157
Cram DS, Baker TT, Boren J (2006) Wildland fire effects in silviculturally treated vs. untreated stands of New Mexico and Arizona. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, research paper RMRS-RP-55, Fort Collins
Cruz MG, Alexander ME (2010) Assessing crown fire potential in coniferous forest of western North America: a critique of current approaches and recent simulation studies. Int J Wildl Fire 19:377–398. https://doi.org/10.1071/WF08132
Higgins SI, Bond WJ, Trollope WSW, Williams RJ (2008) Physically motivated empirical models for the spread and intensity of grass fires. Int J Wildl Fire 17(5):595–601. https://doi.org/10.1071/WF06037
Keeley JE (2009) Fire intensity, fire severity and burn severity: a brief review and suggested usage. Int J Wildl Fire 18:116–126. https://doi.org/10.1071/WF07049
McArthur AG, Cheney NP (1966) The characterization of fires in relation to ecological studies. Aust For Res 2:36–45
Muraro SJ (1971) Prescribed-fire impact in cedar-hemlock logging slash. Environment Canada, Canadian Forestry Service, Pacific Forest Research Centre, publication no. 1295, Ottawa
Rossi JL, Chetehouna K, Collin A, Moretti B, Balbi JH (2010) Simplified flame models and prediction of the thermal radiation emitted by a flame front in outdoor fire. Combust Sci Technol 182:1457–1477. https://doi.org/10.1080/00102202.2010.489914
Rothermel RC (1972) A mathematical model for predicting fire spread in wildland fuels. USDA Forest Service, Intermountain Forest Range Experiment Station, research paper INT-115, Ogden
Ryan KC, Noste NV (1985) Evaluating prescribed fires. USDA Forest Service, Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, general technical report INT-182, Missoula
Silvani X, Morandini F (2009) Fire spread experiments in the field: temperature and heat fluxes measurements. Fire Saf J 44(2):279–285. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.firesaf.2008.06.004
Tangren SD (1976) The trouble with fire intensity. Fire Technol 12(4):261–266
Toulouse T, Rossi L, Campana A, Celik T, Akhloufi M (2017) Computer vision for wildfire research: an evolving image dataset for processing and analysis. Fire Saf J 92:188–194. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.firesaf.2017.06.012
Van Wagner CE (1973) Height of crown scorch in forest fires. Can J For Res 3(3):373–378. https://doi.org/10.1139/X73-055
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Rossi, J.L., Chatelon, F.J., Marcelli, T. (2019). Fire Intensity. In: Manzello, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Wildfires and Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fires. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51727-8_51-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51727-8_51-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-51727-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-51727-8
eBook Packages: Springer Reference EngineeringReference Module Computer Science and Engineering