Influence of Local Vegetation on Fire Spread Mechanisms in Surface Fires
(2024)- Abstract
- The climate change in northern Europe is not only leading to more extreme weather events but also causing long dry summers. This affects the moisture content of the ground and the vegetation. Causing an increased number of wildfires within Germany posing a risk to the environment, society, and firefighters. Surface fire spread in wildfires can be influenced by several environmental conditions and parameters. As the extensive knowledge gained for the US, Australia, Canada, and southern Europe might be not fully applicable to northern Europe a parametric study is carried out based on a field experiment in Saxony-Anhalt Germany. The present work utilizes the particle model of the wildland-urban interface part implemented in the Fire Dynamics... (More)
- The climate change in northern Europe is not only leading to more extreme weather events but also causing long dry summers. This affects the moisture content of the ground and the vegetation. Causing an increased number of wildfires within Germany posing a risk to the environment, society, and firefighters. Surface fire spread in wildfires can be influenced by several environmental conditions and parameters. As the extensive knowledge gained for the US, Australia, Canada, and southern Europe might be not fully applicable to northern Europe a parametric study is carried out based on a field experiment in Saxony-Anhalt Germany. The present work utilizes the particle model of the wildland-urban interface part implemented in the Fire Dynamics Simulator to analyse numerically the influence of the local vegetation on the surface fire spread. Therefore, a 9 m2 area of grassland is modelled and the influence of parameters such as packing ratio, moisture fraction, gras height, ambient temperature, and others are analysed. The vegetation is represented using particles. The combustion is based on a three-step pyrolysis model. The results show the importance of the energy released in ratio to the energy required for pyrolysis. This is observed in models with lower grass blades, a low packing ratio or high moisture contents as these are not leading to a sustained spread. Furthermore, vegetation-specific pyrolysis kinetic parameters are used. However, the significance of these cannot be identified for the chosen case. The chosen parameters in this work are only based on single measurements or assumptions. Therefore, future research should improve the parameters by analysing a larger number of samples. In addition, it should be investigated for other case studies whether individual pyrolysis kinetic parameters are required or if the default ones are sufficient as the deviations are neglectable compared to the uncertainty of the model. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/bdac9619-89de-45f3-aceb-75ee283c9134
- author
- Buhk, Frederik LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2024-06-05
- type
- Other contribution
- publication status
- published
- subject
- pages
- 128 pages
- publisher
- Division of Fire Safety Engineering
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- bdac9619-89de-45f3-aceb-75ee283c9134
- alternative location
- http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9157555
- date added to LUP
- 2026-05-11 14:22:25
- date last changed
- 2026-05-12 13:19:17
@misc{bdac9619-89de-45f3-aceb-75ee283c9134,
abstract = {{The climate change in northern Europe is not only leading to more extreme weather events but also causing long dry summers. This affects the moisture content of the ground and the vegetation. Causing an increased number of wildfires within Germany posing a risk to the environment, society, and firefighters. Surface fire spread in wildfires can be influenced by several environmental conditions and parameters. As the extensive knowledge gained for the US, Australia, Canada, and southern Europe might be not fully applicable to northern Europe a parametric study is carried out based on a field experiment in Saxony-Anhalt Germany. The present work utilizes the particle model of the wildland-urban interface part implemented in the Fire Dynamics Simulator to analyse numerically the influence of the local vegetation on the surface fire spread. Therefore, a 9 m2 area of grassland is modelled and the influence of parameters such as packing ratio, moisture fraction, gras height, ambient temperature, and others are analysed. The vegetation is represented using particles. The combustion is based on a three-step pyrolysis model. The results show the importance of the energy released in ratio to the energy required for pyrolysis. This is observed in models with lower grass blades, a low packing ratio or high moisture contents as these are not leading to a sustained spread. Furthermore, vegetation-specific pyrolysis kinetic parameters are used. However, the significance of these cannot be identified for the chosen case. The chosen parameters in this work are only based on single measurements or assumptions. Therefore, future research should improve the parameters by analysing a larger number of samples. In addition, it should be investigated for other case studies whether individual pyrolysis kinetic parameters are required or if the default ones are sufficient as the deviations are neglectable compared to the uncertainty of the model.}},
author = {{Buhk, Frederik}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{06}},
publisher = {{Division of Fire Safety Engineering}},
title = {{Influence of Local Vegetation on Fire Spread Mechanisms in Surface Fires}},
url = {{http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9157555}},
year = {{2024}},
}