Evaluation of an optimized bush fire propagation model with large-scale fire experiments

Abstract

Thirty-one bush fire experiments are used to assess the predictive capability of a bush fire spread model. This model has been optimized by a deterministic method of parameter calibration. The experiments used were carried out each year from 2014 to 2017 in a forest–savannah transition zone. The characteristics of the herbaceous stratum as well as the meteorological and topographical data are well documented. The characteristics of the fire have also been measured to understand the behaviour of the fire in a Guinean savannah. The predicted rate of fire spread and fire contours gave results in good accordance with those of the experiments.

Keywords

• Optimized model evaluation
• Calibration parameter
• Large-scale bush fire experiments
• Rate of spread
• Fire propagation
• Guinean savannah