Treesearch

Progress made in recent years in fire science, particularly as applied to forest fire protection, coupled with the increased power offered by mathematical processors integrated into computers, has led to important developments in the field of dynamic and static simulation of forest fires. Furthermore, and similarly, econometric models applied to economic evaluation of natural resources have generated algorithms of great scientific consistency that have allowed determining the monetary value of resources that have not traditionally had a commercial or market interaction treatment. VISUAL-SEV...

This study examined the effects of organisational, environmental, group and individual characteristics on five components of safety climate (High Reliability Organising Practices, Leadership, Group Culture, Learning Orientation and Mission Clarity) in the US federal wildland fire management community. Of particular interest were differences between perceptions based on respondents' Incident Position. Those in supervisory positions at the ground level (Type 1 Firefighters) and those at the top (Incident Commanders and operational leads) scored significantly higher than did midlevel superviso...

Fire has been used in Brazil for many years, but the increased use of this tool, combined with natural events and the presence of large forest and agricultural areas, has led to a significant jump in the number of forest fires, most of them caused by accident. To optimize existing resources and to cope with growing demand, action levels were adopted according to the size and complexity of the incident and priorities for fighting forest fires were also set. As part of the attack readiness strategies, the Integrated Multi-agency Operational Coordination Centers (known as CIMANs in Brazil)...

Falcaria vulgaris Bernh. (sickleweed), native to Eurasia, occurs disjunctly in the Midwest and the East Coast of the United States. In parts of Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota, it is an aggressive weed potentially turning to invasive. The main objectives of this study were (1) to reconstruct the introduction history and spread of the plant, (2) to develop and apply molecular markers to study the genetics of sickleweed populations in the United States. I used herbarium records and a suite of molecular markers to accomplish the project objectives. I surveyed 178 US herbaria, including those...

Falcaria vulgaris (sickleweed) is native to Eurasia and a potential invasive plant of the United States. No molecular markers have been developed so far for sickleweed. Characterization of molecular markers for this plant would allow investigation into its population structure and biogeography thereby yielding insights into risk analysis and effective management practices of the plant. In order to characterize the molecular markers, DNA samples were collected from eight populations in Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. Nuclear microsatellite markers developed for other Apiaceae taxa were...

We report the first detailed field survey of sickleweed (Falcaria vulgaris L.) in the United States. Sickleweed is native to Europe, the Mediterranean, Asia Minor, and Iran and was first reported in the United States in 1922. It is listed by the Nebraska Invasive Species Council as a Category II invasive plant species. In recent years, abundance and distribution of sickleweed has increased dramatically in and around the Fort Pierre National Grassland (FPNG), South Dakota. Management of such a rapidly expanding population is hampered by a general lack of baseline information on the biology...

The high costs associated with physically harvesting plant biomass may prevent sufficient data collection, which is necessary to account for the natural variability of vegetation at a landscape scale. A biomass estimation technique was previously developed using representative samples or "reference units", which eliminated the need to harvest biomass from all sample plots. Use of reference units increases the number of plots that can be sampled, allowing monitoring to capture the variability of rangeland. This technique was developed for use on shrub foliage with limited validation of the...

Wildland fire regimes are primarily driven by climate/weather, fuels and people. All of these factors are dynamic and their variable interactions create a mosaic of fire regimes around the world. Climate change will have a substantial impact on future fire regimes in many global regions. Current research suggests a general increase in area burned and fire occurrence but there is a lot of global variability. Recent studies of future global fire weather under different climate change scenarios using several General Circulation Models are reviewed. A widespread increase in future fire weather...

SEILAF is a system designed for training, simulation and research in the fight again forest fires in a 3D world of a great virtual realism. A consortium of technological centers CITIC and CATEC, enterprises such as INDRA and FASSA, and the University of Cordoba have taken part in the design. The simulation center is located in Aeropolis, near the airport of Seville in Andalusia, Spain. The system is comprised by three interconnected simulators: a flight simulator of a 412 Bell helicopter, a flight simulator of a fixed wing aircraft to coordinate the tasks of the aerial coordinator and a...

Rekindles and false alarms are unusually high in the Portuguese wildfire management system, representing a high burden on suppression resources in particular, and fire management resources in general. In 20,049 occurrences that the suppression system handled in the summer of 2010, 12.5% were false alarms and 15.0% were rekindles. We present a discreteevent simulation model of a wildfire suppression system, designed to analyze the joint impact of primary fires, rekindles and false alarms on system performance. The work contributes to fill a research gap concerning that impact, and features...