firebehavioR

An R package for predicting fire behavior using the Rothermel modelling system or the Crown Fire Initiation & Spread modelling system.

Features

Fire behavior predictions using:

• the Rothermel modelling system, similar to BehavePlus, NEXUS, and FuelCalc
• the Crown Fire Initiation & Spread modelling system

Fire weather indices of two types:

• Static (uses instantaneous weather data)
• Dynamic (evolving index value based on continuous daily weather data)

Helper functions which can:

• Calculate the wind adjustment factor, using a little or a lot of site-specific forest canopy information
• Predict canopy fuels characteristics such as canopy bulk density and canopy fuel load
• Determine fine fuel moisture from meteorological observations
• Plot fire behavior outputs onto the Fire Characteristics Chart

Helper data:

• Stylized surface fuel models
• Surface fuel moisture scenarios

Installation

firebehavioR is available on the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN). Alternatively, you can install firebehavioR from GitHub for the development version.

devtools::install_github("EcoFire/firebehavioR")

fireChart() requires ggplot2; otherwise there are no package dependencies. You should have R (>= 3.4.1) installed.

Usage

The vignette in the above references GitHub repo will help you get up and going.

Future Development

This package is a continual work in progress. Suggestions for improvements are welcomed. Currently, additional helper functions are planned:

• Incorporation of models to estimate dead and live fuel moistures using RAWS weather observations
• Additional methods to estimate canopy fuels characteristics
• Visual interpretation of fire behavior results via the Fire Characteristics Chart

Authors

• Justin Ziegler - developer and maintainer, Justin.Ziegler@Colostate.edu

License

GPL (>= 2)