Conditions for the start and spread of crown fire

Wagner, C. E. Van·1977·Canadian Journal of Forest Research

Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Some theory and observations are presented on the factors governing the start and spread of crown fire in conifer forests. Crown fires are classified in three ways according to the degree of dependence of the crown phase of the fire on the ground surface phase. The crown fuel is pictured as a layer of uniform bulk density and height above ground. Simple criteria are presented for the initiation of crown combustion and for the minimum rates of spread and heat transfer into the crown combustion zone at which the crown fire will spread. The theory is partially supported by some observations in four kinds of conifer forest.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1139/x77-004

Cites

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Basic principles of forest fuel reduction treatments
Agee, J. K., & Skinner, C. N. (2005) · Forest Ecology and Management · doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2005.01.034 · Cited by 1,397
Modification of Ecosystems by Ungulates
Hobbs, N. T. (1996) · The Journal of Wildlife Management · doi:10.2307/3802368 · Cited by 1,016
The pre-Quaternary history of fire
Scott, A. C. (2000) · Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology · doi:10.1016/s0031-0182(00)00192-9 · Cited by 720
Standard fire behavior fuel models: a comprehensive set for use with Rothermel's surface fire spread model
Scott, J. H., & Burgan, R. E. (2005) · doi:10.2737/rmrs-gtr-153 · Cited by 636
The challenge of quantitative risk analysis for wildland fire
Finney, M. A. (2005) · Forest Ecology and Management · doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2005.02.010 · Cited by 451
The influence of vegetation, fire spread and fire behaviour on biomass burning and trace gas emissions: results from a process-based model
(2010) · doi:10.5194/bg-7-1991-2010 · Cited by 448
Fire Frequency Models, Methods and Interpretations**This review is dedicated to the memory of M.L. Heinselman . Bud Heinselman pioneered the first fire frequency study and it was his 1969 University of Minnesota seminar on his Boundary Waters Canoe Area study that started one of us (EAJ) thinking about disturbance frequency.
Johnson, E. A., & Gutsell, S. L. (1994) · Advances in Ecological Research · doi:10.1016/s0065-2504(08)60216-0 · Cited by 414
Environmental controls on the distribution of wildfire at multiple spatial scales
Parisien, M.-A., & Moritz, M. A. (2009) · Ecological Monographs · doi:10.1890/07-1289.1 · Cited by 383
Science basis for changing forest structure to modify wildfire behavior and severity
Graham, R. T., McCaffrey, S., & Jain, T. B. (2004) · doi:10.2737/rmrs-gtr-120 · Cited by 366
Experimental fuel treatment impacts on forest structure, potential fire behavior, and predicted tree mortality in a California mixed conifer forest
Stephens, S. L., & Moghaddas, J. J. (2005) · Forest Ecology and Management · doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2005.03.070 · Cited by 355
Do mountain pine beetle outbreaks change the probability of active crown fire in lodgepole pine forests?
Simard, M., Romme, W. H., Griffin, J. M., & Turner, M. G. (2011) · Ecological Monographs · doi:10.1890/10-1176.1 · Cited by 327
Flammability Assessment of Mediterranean Forest Fuels
Dimitrakopoulos, A. P., & Papaioannou, K. K. (2001) · Fire Technology · doi:10.1023/a:1011641601076 · Cited by 318
A comparison of landscape fuel treatment strategies to mitigate wildland fire risk in the urban interface and preserve old forest structure
Ager, A. A., Vaillant, N. M., & Finney, M. A. (2010) · Forest Ecology and Management · doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2010.01.032 · Cited by 308
An overview of the Fuel Characteristic Classification System — Quantifying, classifying, and creating fuelbeds for resource planningThis article is one of a selection of papers published in the Special Forum on the Fuel Characteristic Classification System.
Ottmar, R. D., Sandberg, D. V., Riccardi, C. L., & Prichard, S. J. (2007) · Canadian Journal of Forest Research · doi:10.1139/x07-077 · Cited by 294
A review of recent advances in risk analysis for wildfire management
Miller, C., & Ager, A. A. (2013) · International Journal of Wildland Fire · doi:10.1071/wf11114 · Cited by 277
Do thinning and/or burning treatments in western USA ponderosa or Jeffrey pine-dominated forests help restore natural fire behavior?
Fulé, P. Z., Crouse, J. E., Roccaforte, J. P., & Kalies, E. L. (2012) · Forest Ecology and Management · doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2011.12.025 · Cited by 266
Review of Pathways for Building Fire Spread in the Wildland Urban Interface Part I: Exposure Conditions
Caton, S. E., Hakes, R. S. P., Gorham, D. J., Zhou, A., & Gollner, M. J. (2017) · Fire Technology · doi:10.1007/s10694-016-0589-z · Cited by 241
Stand- and landscape-level effects of prescribed burning on two Arizona wildfires
Finney, M. A., McHugh, C. W., & Grenfell, I. C. (2005) · Canadian Journal of Forest Research · doi:10.1139/x05-090 · Cited by 230
Abrupt Climate-Independent Fire Regime Changes
Pausas, J. G., & Keeley, J. E. (2014) · Ecosystems · doi:10.1007/s10021-014-9773-5 · Cited by 219
Relationships between moisture, chemistry, and ignition of Pinus contorta needles during the early stages of mountain pine beetle attack
Jolly, W. M., Parsons, R. A., Hadlow, A. M., Cohn, G. M., McAllister, S. S., Popp, J. B., Hubbard, R. M., & Negron, J. F. (2012) · Forest Ecology and Management · doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2011.12.022 · Cited by 143
Estimation of wildfire size and risk changes due to fuels treatments
Cochrane, M. A., Moran, C. J., Wimberly, M. C., Baer, A. D., Finney, M. A., Beckendorf, K. L., Eidenshink, J., & Zhu, Z. (2012) · International Journal of Wildland Fire · doi:10.1071/wf11079 · Cited by 136
Ecological foundations for fire management in North American forest and shrubland ecosystems
Keeley, J. E., Aplet, G. H., Christensen, N. L., Conard, S. G., Johnson, E. A., Omi, P. N., Peterson, D. L., & Swetnam, T. W. (2009) · doi:10.2737/pnw-gtr-779 · Cited by 101
Deconstructing the King megafire
Coen, J. L., Stavros, E. N., & Fites‐Kaufman, J. A. (2018) · Ecological Applications · doi:10.1002/eap.1752 · Cited by 92
Mountain pine beetle attack alters the chemistry and flammability of lodgepole pine foliage
Page, W. G., Jenkins, M. J., & Runyon, J. B. (2012) · Canadian Journal of Forest Research · doi:10.1139/x2012-094 · Cited by 90
Modeling wind fields and fire propagation following bark beetle outbreaks in spatially-heterogeneous pinyon-juniper woodland fuel complexes
Linn, R. R., Sieg, C. H., Hoffman, C. M., Winterkamp, J. L., & McMillin, J. D. (2013) · Agricultural and Forest Meteorology · doi:10.1016/j.agrformet.2012.11.007 · Cited by 71
Modeling spatial and temporal dynamics of wind flow and potential fire behavior following a mountain pine beetle outbreak in a lodgepole pine forest
Hoffman, C. M., Linn, R., Parsons, R., Sieg, C., & Winterkamp, J. (2015) · Agricultural and Forest Meteorology · doi:10.1016/j.agrformet.2015.01.018 · Cited by 64
Litter and dead wood dynamics in ponderosa pine forests along a 160-year chronosequence
Hall, S. A., Burke, I. C., & Hobbs, N. T. (2006) · Ecological Applications · doi:10.1890/1051-0761(2006)016[2344:ladwdi]2.0.co;2 · Cited by 67
Modeling wildfire spread in mountain pine beetle-affected forest stands British Columbia, Canada
Perrakis, D. D. B., Lanoville, R. A., Taylor, S. W., & Hicks, D. (2014) · Fire Ecology · doi:10.4996/fireecology.1002010 · Cited by 60
Fuel buildup and potential fire behavior after stand-replacing fires, logging fire-killed trees and herbicide shrub removal in Sierra Nevada forests
McGinnis, T. W., Keeley, J. E., Stephens, S. L., & Roller, G. B. (2010) · Forest Ecology and Management · doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2010.03.026 · Cited by 48
Potential postwildfire debris-flow hazards: a prewildfire evaluation for the Sandia and Manzano Mountains and surrounding areas, central New Mexico
Tillery, A. C., Haas, J. R., Miller, L. W., Scott, J. H., & Thompson, M. P. (2014) · Scientific Investigations Report · doi:10.3133/sir20145161 · Cited by 30
Surface fire intensity influences simulated crown fire behavior in lodgepole pine forests with recent mountain pine beetle-caused tree mortality
Hoffman, C. M., Morgan, P., Mell, W., Parsons, R., Strand, E., & Cook, S. (2013) · Forest Science · doi:10.5849/forsci.11-114 · Cited by 29
Productivity and Cost of Integrated Harvesting for Fuel Reduction Thinning in Mixed-Conifer Forest
Vitorelo, B., Han, H.-S., & Elliot, W. (2011) · Forest Products Journal · doi:10.13073/0015-7473-61.8.664 · Cited by 18

Authors: Wagner, C. E. V.
Venue: Canadian Journal of Forest Research
Publisher: Canadian Science Publishing
Published: 1977-03-01
Volume: 7
Issue: 1
Pages: 23-34
ISSN: 0045-5067 (ISSN-L)
1208-6037
DOI: 10.1139/x77-004
OpenAlex: W2163324173
Cited by: 1,069
References: 0
FWCI: 0.00
Type: journal article
Language: en
Open access: closed

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review

Data sources

Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.

Conditions for the start and spread of crown fire

Abstract

Overview

Integrity signals

Verification

Claims the paper makes

Self-check

Citations

Cited by

Metadata

Record

About these checks

Data sources