Smouldering Fires and Natural Fuels
File(s)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Rein, G
Type
Chapter
Abstract
This chapter argues that smouldering combustion leads to megafires as measured in terms of the total organic material consumed. The chapter reviews the current knowledge on smouldering fires in the Earth system regarding combustion dynamics and chemistry, while highlighting differences with flaming fires. It shows that smouldering combustion of natural ground fuels, like peatlands, leads to the largest and longest burning fires on Earth, and shows that they create a positive feedback mechanism to climate change. It is therefore absolutely crucial for us to expand our limited knowledge of not only flaming, but also particularly of smouldering fires. Flaming wildfires have received much more attention than smouldering fires hitherto; this chapter aims at reversing that trend and contributing new forward-looking ideas to the important study of flameless fires. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Date Issued
2013-04-09
ISBN
9780470657485
Start Page
15
End Page
33
Journal / Book Title
Fire Phenomena and the Earth System: An Interdisciplinary Guide to Fire Science
Copyright Statement
Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Wiley has allowed the author to self-archive this book chapter provided that it is a one-time archiving of the accepted version of the text, prior to publishers typesetting (not the pdf final version). This is a preprint version, and the final version can be found at: Rein, G. (2013) Smouldering Fires and Natural Fuels, in Fire Phenomena and the Earth System: An Interdisciplinary Guide to Fire Science (ed C. M. Belcher), John Wiley & Sons, Oxford. doi: 10.1002/9781118529539.ch2 The full title on Wiley.com:
http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470657480.html
http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470657480.html
Publication Status
Published