Smouldering Natural Fires:
Comparison Of Burning Dynamics In
Boreal Peat And Mediterranean Humus
Author(s)
G. Rein, J. Garcia, A. Simeoni, V. Tihay & L. Ferrat
Abstract
Smouldering of the forest subsurface can be responsible for a large fraction of
the total fuel consumed during wildfires. Subsurface fires can take place in
organic material stored in shallow forest layers such as duff or humus, and in
deeper layers such as peat, landfills and coal seams. These fires play a major role
in the global emission to the atmosphere, the destruction of carbon storage in the
soil and the damage to the natural environment. Burning dynamics in two
different ecosystems affected by smouldering wildfires are studied here; boreal
peat and Mediterranean humus. A series of small-scale smouldering experiments
have been conducted under laboratory conditions to study the ignition and the
severity to the soil. The experimental set-up allowed the temperature and
velocity of the fire front to be measured for different fuel moisture contents. The
two fuels, peat and humus, were tested and the results are compared.
Keywords: subsurface, wildfire, organic soil, duff, smoulder.
1 Introduction
When a layer of organic soil ignites, it burns steadily without flames and
propagates slowly into the soil. Large smouldering fires are rare events at the
local scale but occur regularly at the global scale. Once ignited, they are
particularly difficult to extinguish despite extensive rains or firefighting attempts
and can linger for long periods of time (weeks and up to years; Page et al. [1];
Svensen et al. [2]), and spread over very extensive areas of forest and deep into
the soil. By propagating below the surface, smouldering fires offer the means for
Keywords
subsurface, wildfire, organic soil, duff, smoulder.
Related Book
Other papers in this volume
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