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Type: Journal Article
Author(s): Longyan Cai; Hong S. He; Yu Liang; Zhiwei Wu; Chao Huang
Publication Date: 2019

Fire propagation is inevitably affected by fuel-model parameters during wildfire simulations and the uncertainty of the fuel-model parameters makes forecasting accurate fire behaviour very difficult. In this study, three different methods (Morris screening, first-order analysis and the Monte Carlo method) were used to analyse the uncertainty of fuel-model parameters with FARSITE model. The results of the uncertainty analysis showed that only a few fuel-model parameters markedly influenced the uncertainty of the model outputs, and many of the fuel-model parameters had little or no effect. The fire-spread rate is the driving force behind the uncertainty of other fire behaviours. Thus, the highly uncertain fuel-model parameters associated with spread rate should be used cautiously in wildfire simulations. Monte Carlo results indicated that the relationship between model input and output was non-linear and neglecting fuel-model parameter uncertainty of the model would magnify fire behaviours. Additionally, fuel-model parameters have high input uncertainty. Therefore, fuel-model parameters must be calibrated against actual fires. The highly uncertain fuel-model parameters with high spatial-temporal variability consisted of fuel-bed depth, live-shrub loading and 1-h time-lag loading are preferentially chosen as parameters to calibrate several wildfires.

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Citation: Cai, Longyan; He, Hong S.; Liang, Yu; Wu, Zhiwei; Huang, Chao. 2019. Analysis of the uncertainty of fuel model parameters in wildland fire modelling of a boreal forest in north-east China. International Journal of Wildland Fire 28(3):205-215.

Cataloging Information

Topics:
Fire Behavior    Fuels    Models
Regions:
Keywords:
  • boreal forest
  • China
  • FARSITE - Fire Area Simulator
  • fire spread
  • uncertainty analysis
  • wildfire modeling
Record Last Modified:
Record Maintained By: FRAMES Staff (https://www.frames.gov/contact)
FRAMES Record Number: 57477