The DOI matches its Crossref record; 36 of the 36 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Computational study of critical moisture and depth of burn in peat fires
Open accessAbstract
Smouldering combustion is the slow, low-temperature, flameless burning of porous fuels and the most important phenomenon of wildfires in peatlands. Smouldering fires propagate both horizontally and vertically through organic layers of the ground and can reach deep into the soil. In this work, we develop a one-dimensional computational model of reactive porous media in the open-source code Gpyro. We investigate the vertical in-depth spread of smouldering fires into peat columns 20 cm deep with heterogeneous profiles of moisture content (MC), inert content (IC) and density. The model solves the species, momentum and energy conservation equations with five-step heterogeneous chemistry, to predict the transient profiles of temperature, species concentration, reaction rates and depth of burn from ignition to spread and to extinction. Modelling results reveal that smouldering combustion can spread over peat layers with very high MC (>250%) if the layer is thin and located below a thick, drier layer. It is shown that the critical moisture for extinction can be much higher than the previously reported critical MC for ignition (e.g. extinction MC up to 256% for low-IC peat, with critical ignition MC of 117%). The predicted critical MC values and depths of burn are compared with experimental measurements for field samples in the literature, showing good agreement. This study provides the physical understanding of the role of moisture in the ignition and extinction of smouldering peat fires, and explains for the first time the phenomenon of smouldering in very wet peat layers.
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“Below-ground fire behaviour has been advanced by a small number of observational, experimental and model-based approaches (Huang & Rein, 2015;Massman, 2012).”
From Fire as a fundamental ecological process: Research advances and frontiers (2020) · cites this paper as Huang & Rein, 2015
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Cites
The amount of carbon released from peat and forest fires in Indonesia during 1997
Page, S. E., Siegert, F., Rieley, J. O., Boehm, H.-D. V., Jaya, A., & Limin, S. (2002) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature01131 · Cited by 1,885
Proceedings of the Combustion Institute
Sdol, E. (2009) · Cited by 1,048
Estimation of rate of heat release by means of oxygen consumption measurements
Huggett, C. (1980) · Fire and Materials · doi:10.1002/fam.810040202 · Cited by 1,040
Global vulnerability of peatlands to fire and carbon loss
Turetsky, M. R., Benscoter, B., Page, S., Rein, G., van der Werf, G. R., & Watts, A. (2015) · Nature Geoscience · doi:10.1038/ngeo2325 · Cited by 866
Self-citationModeling of smoldering combustion propagation
Ohlemiller, T. J. (1985) · Progress in Energy and Combustion Science · doi:10.1016/0360-1285(85)90004-8 · Cited by 495
Generalized pyrolysis model for combustible solids
Lautenberger, C., & Fernandez-Pello, C. (2009) · Fire Safety Journal · doi:10.1016/j.firesaf.2009.03.011 · Cited by 366
The severity of smouldering peat fires and damage to the forest soil
Rein, G., Cleaver, N., Ashton, C., Pironi, P., & Torero, J. L. (2008) · CATENA · doi:10.1016/j.catena.2008.05.008 · Cited by 347
Self-citationRappold, A. G., Stone, S. L., Cascio, W. E., Neas, L., Kilaru, V., Carraway, M. S., Szykman, J., Ising, A., Cleve, W. E., Meredith, J. T., et al. (2011) · Environmental Health Perspectives · doi:10.1289/ehp.1003206 · Cited by 319
Stephens, S. L., & Finney, M. A. (2002) · Forest Ecology and Management · doi:10.1016/s0378-1127(01)00521-7 · Cited by 260
Ignition probability of organic soils
Frandsen, W. (1997) · Canadian Journal of Forest Research · doi:10.1139/x97-106 · Cited by 228
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Sorted by citations
Fire as a fundamental ecological process: Research advances and frontiers
McLauchlan, K. K., Higuera, P. E., Miesel, J., Rogers, B. M., Schweitzer, J., Shuman, J. K., Tepley, A. J., Varner, J. M., Veblen, T. T., Adalsteinsson, S. A., et al. (2020) · Journal of Ecology · doi:10.1111/1365-2745.13403 · Cited by 729
“Below-ground fire behaviour has been advanced by a small number of observational, experimental and model-based approaches (Huang & Rein, 2015; Massman, 2012).”
Review of emissions from smouldering peat fires and their contribution to regional haze episodes
Hu, Y., Fernandez-Añez, N., Smith, T. E. L., & Rein, G. (2018) · International Journal of Wildland Fire · doi:10.1071/wf17084 · Cited by 244
Self-citationRein, G. (2015) · The Society of fire protection engineers series · doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-2565-0_19 · Cited by 234
Self-citationReviews and syntheses: Arctic fire regimes and emissions in the 21st century
McCarty, J. L., Aalto, J., Paunu, V.-V., Arnold, S. R., Eckhardt, S., Klimont, Z., Fain, J. J., Evangeliou, N., Venäläinen, A. K., Tchebakova, N. M., et al. (2021) · Biogeosciences · doi:10.5194/bg-18-5053-2021 · Cited by 201
Processes defining smouldering combustion: Integrated review and synthesis
Torero, J. L., Gerhard, J. I., Martins, M. F., Zanoni, M. A. B., Rashwan, T. L., & Brown, J. K. (2020) · Progress in Energy and Combustion Science · doi:10.1016/j.pecs.2020.100869 · Cited by 194
Metadata
- Authors
- Huang, X., & Rein, G.
- Affiliations
- Imperial College London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Rein, Guillermo
- Venue
- International Journal of Wildland Fire
- Publisher
- CSIRO Publishing
- Published
- 2015-07-30
- Volume
- 24
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 798-808
- ISSN
- 1049-8001 (ISSN-L)
- 1448-5516
- OpenAlex
- W1873860114
- Cited by
- 88
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 1
- FWCI
- 17.97
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- International Journal of Wildland Fire (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Funders
- Ohio State University
- Florida Atlantic University
- Universidad del Atlántico
- University College Dublin
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality › Fire dynamics and safety research
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Fire effects on ecosystems
- Physical Sciences › Energy › Fuel Technology › Thermochemical Biomass Conversion Processes
- Keywords
- smoldering combustion, peatland fires, peatlands, critical moisture content, fire extinction, ignition, reactive porous media, heterogeneous chemistry, moisture content
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- Huang, X., & Rein, G. (2015). Computational study of critical moisture and depth of burn in peat fires. International Journal of Wildland Fire. https://doi.org/10.1071/wf14178
