LESSON 3 - EFFECTS OF WEATHER, TOPOGRAPHY AND FUELS ON FIRE BEHAVIOR

3.1 Introduction

Wildland fire is influenced by three natural elements: Weather,Topography and Fuels

Weather

Weather is a critical factor that will influence the behaviour of wildland fire because all means of fire are governed by the laws of combustion.

There must be sufficient quantity of fuel physically arranged in a manner conducive to combustion; the moisture content of the critical fuel must be low enough to permit combustion; and there must be an ignition agent capable of supplying sufficient heat at a high enough temperature to ignite the fuel.

Moisture, or lack of, will determine if a fuel can ignite and will influence the intensity level of a fire once it has begun. Conditions must be monitored regularly to understand the impact that weather has on fire behaviour and for that reason weather conditions are recorded on a daily basis at 1300 hrs. ADT.

The following weather readings are taken at various stations across Nova Scotia:

Relative humidity, Precipitation, Temperature, Wind speed and direction.

> Proceed to Relative Humidity >