Modeling Wildfire Spread in Mountain Pine Beetle-Affected Forest Stands, British Columbia, Canada

Fire Ecology

Table 2 Summary of fire environment and fire behaviour measurements for the 16 monitored fire runs.

Observation number^a	FFMC^b	WS^b (km h⁻¹)	Adjusted ISI^b,c	BUI^b	Duration of fire spread (min)	Observed ROS^b (m min⁻¹)	Predicted C-3 fire type^d	Observed fire type^d	Wx stn^b distance (km)
1	91.3	11.3	10.5	65	75	16.6	IC	AC	31
2	91.0	26.1	21.2*	128	14	66.0	AC	AC	11
3	92.6	10.1	10.3	141	5	32.7	IC	AC	40
4	90.3	15.5	9.7	62	26	12.5	S	AC	39
5	90.0	10.0^e	7.1	85	21	30.6	S	AC	27
6	93.2	4.1	8.6*	100	12	15.9	S	AC	14
7	87.8	19.5	8.4	78	3	29.7	S	AC	25
8	90.6	10.1	7.8	93	107	22.3	S	AC	5
9	92.5	9.3	9.8	93	3	28.9	IC	AC	5
10	89.2	7.7	5.0*	81	85	8.1	S	IC	32
11	93.0	14.2	13.4	81	22	19.1	IC	AC	28
12	93.0	14.5	12.1	79	74	13.5	IC	IC	28
13	92.4	11.0	10.6	88	182	23.8	IC	AC	25
14	92.0	10.2	9.6	88	169	19.4	IC	AC	25
15	87.0	10.0	4.7	70	22	2.7	S	S	0.7
16	90.0	11.0	6.5	111	35	2.6	S	S	0.7

^a Observation numbers match fire observation numbers in Table 1.
^b Acronyms follow Fire Weather Index System convention: FFMC = Fine Fuel Moisture Code; WS = wind speed; ISI = Initial Spread Index; BUI = Buildup Index (Van Wagner 1987). Wx stn = weather station.
^c Asterisks (*) indicate fires where ground slope was >5 %; for these, wind speeds were adjusted based on vectored slope steepness and aspect to yield adjusted ISI (using C-3 fuel type values), as per Van Wagner (1977b).
^d Predicted fire type was calculated using the FBP default foliar moisture content of 97 %. S indicates surface fire behaviour (<0.1 crown fraction burned, or CFB), IC indicates intermittent crown fire (0.1 ≤ CFB ≤ 0.9), and AC indicates active crown fire behaviour (>0.9 CFB), as per Forestry Canada Fire Danger Group (1992).
^e Wind speed on fire observation number 5 was inconsistent between nearby weather stations, and did not match with the smoke column characteristics and direction; 10 km h⁻¹ was estimated based on smoke column appearance and fire reports.