Establishing safety distances for wildland fires

Abstract

In wildland fires, safety zones should be considered concerning people who are intervening in the emergency or attempting evacuation. To establish such zones, the solid flame model, together with the view factor calculated from a previously selected equation, was used to estimate the thermal radiation emitted by the flame front of a wildland fire. After determining the flame heights yielded by the 13 fuel types in the Rothermel classification for surface fires, and for crown fires in various Mediterranean forests, the thermal radiation was calculated for each scenario as a function of the distance. These data, together with threshold values for the vulnerability of people (protected or unprotected) and houses to thermal radiation, allowed for a set of safety distances for different situations to be obtained. These safety distances can be applied both in territory planning and in emergency situations.