Description

Most rural fire managers have a fairly good idea of when grasslands will burn vigorously or not at all. At one end of the fire behavior spectrum are conditions where grasslands are green or affected by recent rain, and fires will not start nor spread. At the opposite end, fire spread in dry, fully cured grassland under the influence of severe fire weather (e.g., Noble 1991), and the occurrence of erratic and vigorous fire behavior is easily predicted. However, the fire environment factors (fuel, weather, and topography) interact in a complex way to influence a fire's behavior (Countryman 1972), so predicting fire behavior between the two ends of the spectrum is somewhat more difficult. The 1991 Tikokino Fire, where firefighters used an initial attack strategy and were overrun by fire, provides an example of this.