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CFIS is a software tool incorporating several recently developed models designed to simulate crown fire behavior. The main outputs of CFIS are:

  1. the likelihood of crown fire initiation or occurrence;
  2. the type of crown fire (active vs. passive) and its rate of spread; and
  3. the minimum spotting distance required to increase a fire's overall forward rate of spread.

The primary models incorporated into CFIS have been evaluated against experimental and wildfire observations. CFIS has applicability as a decision support aid in a wide variety of fire management activities ranging from near-real time prediction of fire behavior to analyzing the impacts of fuel treatments on potential crown fire behavior.

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The onset of crowning can be predicted through two distinct approaches. One approach relies on the knowledge of canopy base height and certain components of the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index System and/or the 10-m open wind speed. The other approach requires the 10-m open wind, the estimated fine fuel moisture, fuel strata gap (or canopy base height), and an estimate of surface fuel consumption as inputs. Required inputs to predict crown fire rate of spread are 10-m open wind speed, estimated fine fuel moisture, and canopy bulk density. The minimum spotting distance to affect overall crown fire rate of spread, which assumes a point ignition and subsequent fire acceleration to an equilibrium rate of spread, requires the predicted crown fire spread rate and an ignition delay as inputs.

Contacts

Martin E. Alexander
Wild Rose Fire Behaviour
mea2@telus.net
curriculum vitae (pdf)

Miguel G. Cruz
CSIRO Bushfire Dynamics & Applications
Miguel.Cruz@csiro.au

Publications

Displaying 1 - 37 of 37
People Title Year Sort ascending Type
Alexander, Cruz Practical tools for assessing potential crown fire behavior and canopy fuel characteristics 2015 Document
Alexander, Cruz Tables for estimating canopy fuel characteristics from stand variables in four interior west conifer forest types 2014 Document
Canopy Fuel Stratum Characteristics Calculator v1.1 2013 Tool
Stocks, Alexander, Wotton, Stefner, Flannigan, Taylor, Lavoie, Mason, Hartley, Maffey, Dalrymple, Blake, Cruz, Lanoville Erratum: crown fire behaviour in a northern jack pine-black spruce forest (erratum 2) 2011 Document
Cruz, Alexander Use of fire behaviour models to support silvicultural and fuel management decision making in industrial pine plantations (conference abstract) 2011 Document
Alexander, Cruz What are the safety implications of crown fires? 2011 Document
Cruz, Alexander, Wakimoto Comment on 'Estimating canopy fuel characteristics in five conifer stands in the western United States using tree and stand measurements' 2010 Document
Alexander, Cruz Introducing the Canopy Fuel Stratum Characteristics Calculator 2010 Document
Lavoie, Alexander, Macdonald Photo guide for quantitatively assessing the characteristics of forest fuels in a jack pine - black spruce chronosequence in the Northwest Territories 2010 Document
Cruz, Alexander Assessing crown fire potential in coniferous forests of western North America: a critique of current approaches and recent simulation studies 2010 Document
Canopy Fuel Stratum Characteristics Calculator v1.0 2010 Tool
Cruz, Alexander Crown fires 2010 Document
Bilgili, Durmaz, Alexander, Saglam, Kucuk, Baysal The effect of pruning on crown fire behavior in a calabrian pine plantation, northeastern Turkey 2010 Document
Alexander, Cruz Recent advances in modelling the onset of crowning and crown fire rate of spread (abstract) 2009 Document
Cruz, Alexander Assessing discontinuous fire behavior and uncertainty associated with the onset of crowning (abstract) 2009 Document
Cruz, Alexander, Fernandes Development of a model system to predict wildfire behaviour in pine plantations 2008 Document
Alexander Software can assess fuel treatment effectiveness on crown fire behavior 2007 Document
Cruz, Fernandes, Alexander Development of a model system to predict wildfire behaviour in pine plantations (conference paper) 2007 Document
Cruz, Butler, Alexander Predicting the ignition of crown fuels above a spreading surface fire - Part II: model evaluation 2006 Document
Cruz, Butler, Alexander, Forthofer, Wakimoto Predicting the ignition of crown fuels above a spreading surface fire - Part I: model idealization 2006 Document
Alexander, Cruz Evaluating a model for predicting active crown fire rate of spread using wildfire observations 2006 Document
Crown Fire Initiation and Spread Software System (CFIS) 2006 Tool
Scott Comparison of crown fire modeling systems used in three fire management applications 2006 Document
Stocks, Alexander, Wotton, Stefner, Flannigan, Taylor, Lavoie, Mason, Hartley, Maffey, Dalrymple, Blake, Cruz, Lanoville Erratum: crown fire behaviour in a northern jack pine-black spruce forest 2006 Document
Cruz, Butler, Alexander, Viegas Development and evaluation of a semi-physical crown fire initiation model 2006 Document
Alexander Forest health: fire behavior considerations 2006 Document
Alexander Models for predicting crown fire behavior - a review 2006 Document
Alexander, Cruz, Lopes CFIS: a software tool for simulating crown fire initiation and spread 2006 Document
Cruz, Alexander, Wakimoto Development and testing of models for predicting crown fire rate of spread in conifer forest stands 2005 Document
Cruz, Alexander, Wakimoto Modeling the likelihood of crown fire occurrence in conifer forest stands 2004 Document
Cruz Ignition of crown fuels above a spreading surface fire 2004 Document
Stocks, Alexander, Wotton, Stefner, Flannigan, Taylor, Lavoie, Mason, Hartley, Maffey, Dalrymple, Blake, Cruz, Lanoville Crown fire behaviour in a northern jack pine-black spruce forest 2004 Document
Cruz, Alexander, Wakimoto Assessing the probability of crown fire initiation based on fire danger indices 2003 Document
Cruz, Alexander, Wakimoto Assessing canopy fuel stratum characteristics in crown fire prone fuel types of western North America 2003 Document
Cruz, Alexander, Wakimoto Definition of a fire behavior model evaluation protocol: a case study application to crown fire behavior models 2003 Document
Cruz, Alexander, Wakimoto Predicting crown fire behavior to support forest fire management decision-making 2002 Document
Cruz Modeling the initiation and spread of crown fires 1999 Document