Validation of Farsite Model in Mediterranean Area

In the last two decades several deterministic models for predicting fire behaviour have been developed. One of the most common fire growth model is the computer program Farsite (Finney, 1998), based on the Rothermel’s original fire spread equation. Farsite describes the spatial and temporal spread and behaviour of fire under different terrain, fuels, and weather conditions. It is currently used by many wildland fire managers in the United States to simulate characteristics of prescribed natural fires and wildfire (Keane et al., 2000). This model is composed of a series of routines that require topography, weather and fuel parameters as input. Realistic predictions of fire growth depend on the consistency and accuracy of the input data layers needed to execute the program. A generalized description of fuel properties based upon average fuel conditions, called as fuel model, is used typically to describe the physical characteristics of a fuel class in an area. The most commonly used fuel model in the U.S. are the 13 fire behaviour fuel models proposed by Anderson (1982). Recently Scott and Burgan (2005) proposed a new set of fuel model applicable to fire behaviour modelling system that use Rothermel’s surface fire spread model. Despite the availability of several fuel model, the final fuel model selection by the user must be based on experience with fire behaviour in the fuelbed under consideration. This aspect is particularly important in areas of Mediterranean basin where fuel is mainly represented by living vegetation characterized by high specific and structural heterogeneity and complexity. So that for Mediterranean maquis the different fuel models require a local validation in order to improve the agreement between simulated and actually observed fire behaviour. The main aim of this study is to analyze the effect of fuel models, weather conditions, and topography on the accuracy of FARSITE simulations, in order to illustrate the capabilities of FARSITE model in forecasting the fire spread in Mediterranean areas.