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Publications (56)
This paper presents a research program called CP2DIMG conducted at the Federation of Environment and Society Research at the University of Corsica. The goal of CP2DIMG is to be er understand the influence of emotions on operational personnel's decision-making, aiming to test training systems dedicated to individuals facing high stress during their...
A safe separation distance (SSD) needs to be considered during firefighting activities (fire suppression or people evacuation) against wildfires. The SSD is of critical interest for both humans and assets located in the wildland-urban interfaces (WUI). In most cases, the safety zone models and guidelines assume a flat terrain and only radiant heati...
This paper reports two experimental fires conducted at field-scale in Corsica, across a particular mountain shrubland. The orientation of the experimental plots was chosen in such a way that the wind was aligned along the main slope direction in order to obtain a high intensity fire. The first objective was to study the high intensity fire behavior...
This paper reported a high intensity experimental fire conducted during a field-scale experiment on a steep sloped terrain (28°) as part of a winter prescribed burns campaign managed by the local firefighter service in the north-western region of Corsica. The rate of spread (ROS) of fire, measured using UAV cameras (thermal and visible), was evalua...
The ‘Balbi model’ is a simplified rate of fire spread model aimed at providing computationally fast and accurate simulations of fire propagation that can be used by fire managers under operational conditions. This model describes the steady-state spread rate of surface fires by accounting for both radiation and convection heat transfer processes. I...
O período entre 2018 e 2022 mostrou-nos que o problema dos incêndios à escala global não está a diminuir, antes pelo contrário. Parece que as consequências das alterações climáticas já estão a afectar a ocorrência de incêndios florestais em várias partes do Mundo, de uma forma que só esperaríamos que acontecesse vários anos mais tarde. Em muitos pa...
O período entre 2018 e 2022 mostrou-nos que o problema dos incêndios à escala global não está a diminuir, antes pelo contrário. Parece que as consequências das alterações climáticas já estão a afectar a ocorrência de incêndios florestais em várias partes do Mundo, de uma forma que só esperaríamos que acontecesse vários anos mais tarde. Em muitos pa...
O período entre 2018 e 2022 mostrou-nos que o problema dos incêndios à escala global não está a diminuir, antes pelo contrário. Parece que as consequências das alterações climáticas já estão a afectar a ocorrência de incêndios florestais em várias partes do Mundo, de uma forma que só esperaríamos que acontecesse vários anos mais tarde. Em muitos pa...
O período entre 2018 e 2022 mostrou-nos que o problema dos incêndios à escala global não está a diminuir, antes pelo contrário. Parece que as consequências das alterações climáticas já estão a afectar a ocorrência de incêndios florestais em várias partes do Mundo, de uma forma que só esperaríamos que acontecesse vários anos mais tarde. Em muitos pa...
O período entre 2018 e 2022 mostrou-nos que o problema dos incêndios à escala global não está a diminuir, antes pelo contrário. Parece que as consequências das alterações climáticas já estão a afectar a ocorrência de incêndios florestais em várias partes do Mundo, de uma forma que só esperaríamos que acontecesse vários anos mais tarde. Em muitos pa...
O período entre 2018 e 2022 mostrou-nos que o problema dos incêndios à escala global não está a diminuir, antes pelo contrário. Parece que as consequências das alterações climáticas já estão a afectar a ocorrência de incêndios florestais em várias partes do Mundo, de uma forma que só esperaríamos que acontecesse vários anos mais tarde. Em muitos pa...
O período entre 2018 e 2022 mostrou-nos que o problema dos incêndios à escala global não está a diminuir, antes pelo contrário. Parece que as consequências das alterações climáticas já estão a afectar a ocorrência de incêndios florestais em várias partes do Mundo, de uma forma que só esperaríamos que acontecesse vários anos mais tarde. Em muitos pa...
The effectiveness of a fuelbreak, created in a homogeneous grassland on a flat terrain, was studied numerically. The analysis relies on 3D numerical simulations that were performed using a detailed physical-fire-model (FIRESTAR3D) based on a multiphase formulation. To avoid border effects, calculations were carried out by imposing periodic boundary...
The safety during prescribed burnings could be achieved by conducting these operations under marginal conditions of fire propagation. This type of fire can or cannot propagate on account of small deviations of the burning conditions, mainly the wind speed, the fuel load, and the fuel moisture-content. In this context, numerical simulations of grass...
This paper evaluates the fuel moisture content (FMC) threshold that leads to fire extinction for a few fuel types under marginal conditions. Influences of fuel load, fuel depth, Leaf Area Index (LAI) and packing ratio on this FMC threshold were also analyzed. This aim was reached by applying numerical simulations performed with three approaches: a...
Most of the damage from wildfires is due to extreme events that represent less than 2 per cent of the total number of fires. These events, for which neither ecosystems nor communities are adapted , can have significant socioeconomic and ecological consequences. This is why it is now time to develop appropriate risk reduction strategies and minimize...
The ‘Balbi model’ is a simplified steady-state physical propagation model for surface fires that considers radiative heat transfer from the surface area of burning fuel particles as well as from the flame body. In this work, a completely new version of this propagation model for wildand fires is proposed. Even if, in the present work, this model is...
Fire prevention covers controlling both fire hazards and fire risks. Preventing wildfires through controlling the quantity or arrangement of forest fuels can be a solution. Fuelbreaks are a common method of applying hazard reduction. Fuelbreaks are man-made areas with a reduced fuel load that act as barriers to stop or slow down fire spread. They a...
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 desc...
Several studies in the literature explore the connection between rate of spread (ROS) and wind in wildland fires. These studies show very different positions about the role of radiation and convection as heat transfer mechanisms. In the case when the fuel bed is well-ordered and vertically-oriented, there seems to be a consensus leading to suggest...
The scope of this work is to present a multidisciplinary study in order to propose a tool called DIMZAL. DIMZAL forecasts fuelbreak safety zone sizes. To evaluate a safety zone and to prevent injury, the Acceptable Safety Distance (ASD) between the fire and firefighters is required. This distance is usually set thanks to a general rule-of-thumb: it...
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...
Several studies in the literature explore the connection between rate of spread (ROS) and wind speed in wildland fires. This relationship is often expressed as a power function but the exponents differ from an author to another one. The main goal of this work is to propose a simplified physical propagation model for surface fires that gives the rel...
Fire eruption is a significant threat to the safety of wildland fire fighters. Over the last few years, several accidents have caused important human losses. Generally, these fire fighters are surprised by the sudden acceleration of the head fire and they are not prepared for facing it. We characterize eruptive fires by an unexpected increasing of...
In this work, a simplified fire-spread model is presented. The mean features of a spreading surface fire-front such as rate of spread, tilt angle, flame height, are expounded. The model improves a previous work. The flame sub model was based on the McCaffrey law. In order to eliminate this weakness, it evolves thanks to simplified hypotheses and en...
The physical model we developed in a previous work (J. H. Balbi et al., 20073.
Balbi , J.H. , Rossi , J.L. , Marcelli , T. , and Santoni , P.A. 2007 . A 3D physical real-time model of surface fires across fuel beds . Combustion Science and Technology , 179 , 2511 – 2537 . [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®]View all references) predicts fi...
Fires are the major source of forest destruction in the Mediterranean basin. Fire risk evaluation is crucial in regions such as the Mediterranean, where a sharp increase of fire events in forests has been observed during these last years (FAO, 2001, Pausas et al., 2008). Fire spread models and wildland fire calculation systems have been carried out...
We deal here with the application of discrete-event System Specification (DEVS) formalism to implement a semi-physical fire spread model. Currently, models from physics finely representing forest fires are not efficient and still under development. If current softwares are devoted to the simulation of simple models of fire spread, nowadays there is...
This work presents a new modelling approach to the elaboration of a simple model of surface fire spread. This model runs faster than real-time and will be integrated in management tools. Until now, models used in such tools have been based on an empirical relationship. These tools may be efficient for conditions that are comparable to those of test...
The purpose of this paper is to present the new 3D physical model of forest fire and the image processing methods developed in order to extract information from video recordings and to compare numerical data and "real" data.
A fire spread experiment was conducted in the field under wind-blown conditions. The fuel consists of tall and dense Mediterranean shrub vegetation. The plot area was about 30 m wide and 80 m long. This experiment was conducted not only in order to increase the knowledge and understanding of the fire behaviour in the field but to provide data for t...
The aim of this article is twofold. First, it concerns the improvement of knowledge on the fundamental physical mechanisms that control the propagation of forest fires. To proceed, an experimental apparatus was designed to study, in laboratory conditions, the flame of a fire spreading across a pine needle fuel bed. Characterization of temperature w...
Fire behavior prediction models required for controlling wildland fires can be calculated from a mathematical approach, taking the thermal and chemical properties of forest fuels into account. There is a need for a better understanding of the thermal decomposition of forest fuels. Two steps have been observed during the thermal degradation of Pinus...
Although the modeling of the spread of a forest fire has made considerable progress recently, there remains a lack of reliable measurements of such fluctuating scalar quantities as temperature for the validation of the different existing models. This led us to use double thermocouples to measure fluctuating temperatures in the continuous flame regi...
website : http://www.scs-europe.net/conf/ess2001/ess2001finprog.pdf
