“Visual forest fire weather index (VFFWI)” a mathematical modelfor the prediction of forest fires weather danger in Mediterraneanecosystems

摘要

The administration of the defense programs against forest fires in mediterraneanrnareas has experienced in the last years an important growth in refers to the methods and materialrnresources for the extinction. However the activities of prevention have not had a similar development,rnon the contrary, they evolve to a limited speed, due among other questions to the lack ofrnassignment of economic resources and research programs. For this reason and with the intentionrnof advancing in the knowledge of the meteorological information and their repercussion in forestrnfires danger, it was developed between the years 1997 and 2000, an experimentation project financedrnby the DGVI of the European Commission and the Forest Administration of Andalusia,rnfor the elaboration of a model of evaluation of the weather danger condition implication on forestrnfires in mediterranean forest ecosystems. For this project I was considered as reference the Canadianrnforest fire danger rating system. The developed model allows to evaluate the danger, inrnfunction of the meteorological parameters, the moisture of the surface fine fuels, the moisture ofrnthe fuels located to seven centimeters of depth and the probability of ignition, making also thernforest fire weather danger index, and a specific index to evaluate the initial propagation. An advancedrnversion of this model has included an empirical model for to know the rate spread of firernin function of the fuels models and of the initial spread index, this new incorporation has allowedrnto extend the use of the program from the prevention until the forest fires extinction activities.