Semiarid grasslands accumulate soil beneath plant ‘‘islands’’ that are raised above bare interspaces. This fine-scale variation in microtopographic relief is plant-induced and is increased with shrub establishment. Research found that fire-induced water repellency enhanced local-scale soil erosion that reduced variation in microtopographic relief, suggesting that fire may counteract vegetation-...

In many severe accidents involving explosions or large fires, jet fires have been the first step of a domino effect sequence: a recent historical analysis has shown that among the accidents registered in the data bases, in approximately 50% of the cases in which it was a jet fire it caused another event with severe effects. However, the knowledge of jet fires essential features –behaviour, effe...

Square pool fires with length of 5, 7.5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 cm and rectangular pool fires with dimensions of 10 cm x 20 cm and 10 cm x 40 cm were burned in a wind tunnel, under a longitudinal air flow ranged from 0 to 3m/s with incremental change of about 0.5m/s. Methanol and gasoline were burned and compared, with results indicated that their burning rates showed different response to the l...

Coalbed fires are uncontrolled subsurface fires that occur around the world. These fires are believed to be significant contributors to annual CO2 emissions. Although many of these fires have been burning for decades, researchers have only recently begun to investigate physical mechanisms that control fire behavior. One aspect of fire behavior that is poorly characterized is the relationship be...

Fast detection of forest fires is a great concern among environmental experts and national park managers because forest fires create economic and ecological damages and endanger human lives. For effective fire control and resource preparation, it is necessary to predict fire occurrences in advance and estimate the possible losses caused by fires. For this purpose, real-time sensor data of weath...

The geologic history of the tall grass prairie in central North America reveals the prairie began developing 10,000 years ago after the Pleistocene ice sheets had retreated into Canada. The long-lived triangular shaped prairie survived several climatic shifts during the Holocene. Scientists have studied the anomaly—grasses where many climate conditions indicate forests should have been growing—...

The Middle Fork Salmon River watershed spans high-elevation mixed-conifer forests to lowerelevation shrub-steppe. In recent decades, runoff from severely burned hillslopes has generated large debris flows in steep tributary drainages. These flows incised alluvial fans along the mainstem river, where charcoal-rich debris-flow and sheetflood deposits preserve a record of latest Pleistocene to Hol...

Field observations made at Harvard Forest [Petersham, MA, U.S.A. (42 degrees 54' N, 72 degrees 18' W)] during early July 2002 show clear evidence of long-range transport of gaseous mercury (Hg) in a smoke plume from a series of boreal forest fires in northern Quebec. These measurements indicated significant and highly correlated increases in Hg and CO during the plume event. The Hg:CO emissions...

With the increasing use and complexity of urban natural gas pipelines, the occurrence of accidents owing to leakage, fire, explosion, etc. has increased. To analyze the scope of impacts of single-point fires associated with urban natural gas pipelines and the spread of urban fires caused thereby, this study analyzes single-point fires and the dynamic spread of fires by using a natural gas pipel...

Purpose of Review The goal was to synthesize the literature on wildland fires, how they create resilient landscape mosaics that affect ecosystem function and maintenance of biodiversity, and how the fires themselves are affected by wilderness edge effects and climate change. The emphasis is on coldtemperate and boreal forests. Recent Findings The interactions of fires with landforms create larg...