Over the last several years, in an increasingly hot and dry climate, we’ve seen wildfires behave in unprecedented ways, burning with great intensity and spreading with enormous speed.

 

Most fire behavior models were developed in the 1970s, when there was far less fuel in California’s forests and most wildfires consumed a thin layer of leaves and needles on the forest floor. Since then aggressive fire suppression efforts, combined with severe drought that has killed millions of trees, have left forests filled with trees and branches—heavy fuels that allow fires to grow far more intense than in previous decades. 

 

Current fire behavior models do not account for these new conditions. 

 

In addition, too little is understood about the physics of how wildfires burn, including how much heat is released, what gases are emitted, and the effects of weather (especially wind and moisture) in the transition from smoldering to flaming combustion. 

 

All of these conditions converge to make current models inadequate in predicting fire behavior.