Coupled fire-atmosphere modelling of dynamic fire behaviour

Description:

Interactions between wind, terrain and an active bushfire are known to significantly alter the behaviour of the fire. These interactions can cause a fire to exhibit ‘blow-up’ fire behaviour, which involves an abrupt increase in the rate of spread and intensity of a fire. This phenomenon can seriously compromise firefighter safety and result in loss of containment of a fire leading to the development of extreme bushfires. These fires are responsible for the majority of impacts and costs associated with bushfires in Australia and other fire-prone parts of the world. This project will use coupled fire-atmosphere models to accomplish the following research objectives: 

• Investigate the dynamics of several key fire propagation scenarios. 
• Identify environmental thresholds associated with the onset of dynamic fire behaviours. 
  
• Investigate the potential for development of models of reduced complexity to support faster than real time simulation of dynamic fire spread.