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Applying FARSITE and Prometheus on the Västmanland Fire, Sweden (2014) : fire growth simulation as a measure against forest fire spread : a model suitability study

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Author

  • Henrik Hagelin
  • Matthieu Cluzel

Summary, in English

In 2014, the Västmanland County in Sweden suffered from a severe forest fire that grew to a size of roughly 13000ha. Recent and prevailing weather conditions made the fire overpower the extinguishing ability of the Swedish emergency services, and it ran out of control to become the largest forest fire in Sweden since the middle of the 20th century. The year after the fire, a need to increase the emergency preparedness for complex events, such as the Västmanland Fire, was issued by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency. Simulation of fire spread can help to limit the consequences of wildfires, hence this study aims to find out if either of the fire growth simulation models FARSITE or Prometheus, can simulate forest fires in a Swedish environment. The Västmanland Fire was chosen as reference because of its significance in the Swedish history, and it is used to test model suitability. Attempt 1 managed to simulate only 15 % of the reference fire, whilst more than 80 % was replicated by attempt 2. Prometheus proved to be the better alternative due to its simulation results and its COM-based structure. The limited time frame of this work allowed simulation of only one fire which means that the results found in this study should not be seen as a confirmation of suitability but as a start of a larger project. Future works are recommended to further test Prometheus, and needs to focus on the creation of custom fuel types that corresponds to Swedish vegetation.

Publishing year

2016

Language

English

Publication/Series

Student thesis series INES

Document type

Student publication for Bachelor's degree

Topic

  • Earth and Environmental Sciences

Keywords

  • model suitability
  • forest fire
  • fire behaviour
  • FARSITE
  • Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science
  • Västmanland fire
  • Prometheus

Report number

375

Supervisor

  • Veiko Lehsten