Assessing the Impact of Fuel Moisture Conditions on Fire Spread and Behavior in Golestan National Park

Temporal and spatial variations of fire behavior can be predicted using one of the semi-physical or empirical models developed over recent years. This article investigates the effect of different fuel moisture conditions on fire spread and behavior in National Golestan Park in July 2011 using FARSITE, FlamMap simulation systems, and previous ignition history. Landscape data contains the topography and vegetation spatial information along with weather data are used as simulation input. Fuel moisture conditions representing moderate, moderate-dry, dry, extreme fuel moisture scenarios were used to generate the fire behavior characteristics. These characteristics includes the fire perimeter and area for each time step provided by FARSITE and rate of spread, surface flame length, and fireline intensity as calculated parameters by FlamMap. Fire Area Simulator was validated with the real mapped fire scar by GPS mapping. Based on the results, the simulated fire spread covered 90% of the observed fire scar which was almost high, whilst overestimation was 30%. The results of simulations show that the fuel moisture reduction causes a remarkable growth on the fire perimeter and area, with an increase on both maximum and average fire spread rate, flame length and fireline intensity. The results revealed spatial variation in fire behavior parameters that is useful in prioritizing fuel treatments and guiding other wildfire risk management activities.