Nikolaos Iliopoulos, PhD, and Michail Chalaris, PhD
Department of Chemistry, International Hellenic University, Kavala, Greece

Part of the book: The Challenges of Disaster Planning, Management, and Resilience

Abstract

An important goal of this study was how meteorological factors (wind and relative humidity) as well as the type and moisture content of the fuel affect the combustion heat of a fire in a study area and consequently the fire hazard and the difficulty of extinguishing; and also whether and how the description of spread of a forest fire at an operational level can be achieved, as well as the effect of forest firefighting forces, if the weather, topography and vegetation factors are known. The study area is the region of Attica, in Greece and especially the region of eastern Attica. The FARSITE (Fire Area Simulator) fire simulator was used. Specifically, it was confirmed that the intensity of the wind significantly affects the difficulty of extinguishing as it directly affects the speed of the fire. In the study area, for wind speeds of 70 Km/h (8 Bf), the possible fires, will develop into mega-fires in the first 30 minutes of their onset and the use of air means is imperative. With the intervention of a firebreak instead, the fires that will break out, in the first 30 minutes will be of medium difficulty and the use of machinery and vehicles is imperative. In summary, the above conclusions can be the first step towards systematization in immediate decision making and a valuable information tool at the operational level.

Keywords: combustion heat, forest fires, FARSITE

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