Behind The Flames: The science behind the behavior of a fire

Last week, Lieser created a fire behavior model which incorporated how known blazes in the area of the Monument Fire behaved. He included information about historical fires and ran the data through a computer model 2,000 times. The end result was a possible fire path which had little variance, Lieser said. Although the blaze initially followed the computer model, there were some deviations which caused Lieser and others concern. The intensity of the flames and the rate of spread were issues, but when the wind speed variations and wind directions changed, Lieser and others knew the Monument Fire was not going to follow most of the expected historic track. “Computer models assist with the analyzing, but those models require interpretation,” he said. There always is a variability factor which has to be calculated, including what percentage of a fire will behave erratically, Lieser said. The conditions feeding the Monument Fire create a real danger that something unusual will happen, Lieser said...more