Survey of wildfire simulation using FARSITE model (case study: Yeylagh Gasre Dagh, Meshgin Shahr Municipality)

Wildfire as a natural hazard is a major problem for forest and rangeland ecosystems of the world. In the Semi-Steppe Rangelands of Ardabil Province, severe wildfires can account for the adverse impacts on the ecosystems. These fires are the result of the combination of weather conditions, dry fuels, and topography effects. The Ghasre Dagh Yeylagh fire is an example of a severe wildfire that occurred with extreme environmental conditions, which was ignited on August 16, 2015, in the Meshgin Shahr municipality. In this study, weather conditions, fuels, and topography factors that strongly affected the fire will be accurately analyzed. The fire spread and behavior data including the observed final fire perimeter and fire arrival to the northern border of the fire perimeter (firefighting point) collected during the event will be also compared with the results of fire simulation obtained by FARSITE model. The average simulation accuracy for the burned area, as measured by the Sorensen coefficient and Cohen Kappa Coefficient was 0.84. Simulation overestimation of flanking fire spread areas was expected and observed, since suppression activities that contained the fire spread were not considered in the model, due to the lake of this information. The main goal of this paper is to thoroughly study the behavior of a recent fire, to learn from it, and lessen the potential mistakes or hazardous fire-fighting operations in similar environmental conditions. Furthermore, a crucial point is to teach the fire crews not to be threatened by severe or abrupt fire behavior under extreme environmental conditions.