- Title:
-
Fuel Discontinuities and Associated Nonlinear Fire Dynamics in Australian Mallee-Heath Vegetation
- Date:
- September 2008
- Organisations
- AFAC 2008 Conference
- Location:
- Australia, ACT, Australia
Overview
The International Bushfire Research Conference 2008 - incorporating The 15th annual AFAC Conference, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Mallee-heath vegetation occurring in semiarid and Mediterranean climates develops a vertically non-uniform and spatially discontinuous fuel complex. The heterogeneity of the fuel layers sustaining fire propagation leads to fire behaviour characterized by nonlinear dynamics where small changes in the drivers of fire spread lead to large changes in observed fire behaviour. Within this fuel complex fire behaviour is not just determined by the effect of fuels and weather, but to a large extent determined by the interactions between those variables and the structure of the flame front.
Aiming at understanding the processes determining this nonlinear dynamics and ultimately fire behaviour in this fuel type an experimental burning program was carried out in the Ngarkat Conservation Park, South Australia from 2006 to 2008.
