VEGETATION FIRE BEHAVIOR PREDICTION
The necessity for predicting the behavior of vegetation fires, including forest fires, is keenly felt in a time of severe droughts, which periodically recur in this or that area, and their precise prediction is still hampered. It is unfeasible to maintain sufficient forces and means in each region for suppressing all emerging fires. Merely the increase of technical power won’t solve the problem, as evidenced by the experience of developed countries, where much attention, along with fire danger rating, has long been given to the development of a fire behavior prediction system. Such system in Russia isn’t available yet, and the use of international practices seems to be impossible, since it is complicated by several factors and, above all, different historically developed approaches to the pyrological classification of vegetation and its inventory. Currently, there are all opportunities for creating the Russian system for vegetation fire behavior prediction (including forest fires): fundamental pyrological developments based on the research results of the nature of fires; a fire monitoring system has been created and is being developed; and fire danger (both natural and due to the weather conditions) rating is being improved. The article presents a principle diagram of the vegetation fire behavior prediction and considers its main components. A practical model was chosen for prediction the burning spread rate. The necessary data base for the model is available in the GIS system. Software for creation vegetation fuel (VF) maps and prediction the behavior of surface forest fires, which are up to 97 % of all occurring fires has been developed, retrospectively verified and registered. Examples of the VF maps for the Chunskoye Forest District (Krasnoyarsk Krai) for different periods of the fire season are given. They are created based on the use of forest management information and a type identifier of primary fire carriers (i.e. the first VF group), which is directly shown in the maps. Information on the other groups of VF supporting, delaying burning or not participating in the process of burning spread, is attached to the map in the form of a pyrological description. A list of the data included in the pyrological description is given, as well as the reasons, which hold back on practical application of pyrological developments available in Russia for predicting the behavior of vegetation fires into the forest fire protection service.