%0 Journal Article
%T Simple models for predicting dead fuel moisture in eucalyptus forests
%J International journal of wildland fire
%D 2010
%A Matthews, Stuart
%A Gould, Jim
%A McCaw, Lachie
%V 19
%N 4
%P 459-467
%X Fire behaviour prediction requires models of dead fuel moisture that are both accurate and suitable for use for operational applications. The paper investigates two methods of developing a simple operational fine fuel moisture model from a more complex process-based model. The first simple model is a table of fuel moisture predictions for values of air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and solar radiation. The second model reduces the original model to a single differential equation, which may be used on low-powered computers. The simple models are tested against the output of the original model and against observations from two case studies in dry eucalyptus forest in south-western Australia. The single differential equation model was capable of reproducing the prediction of the process-based model at all times of the day, with mean error (ME) in predictions of -0.1% and mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.6%. The table model performed less well, with ME = -0.7% and MAE = 1.1% at 1500 hours, and ME = -1.2% and MAE = 3.0% at other times of the day.<p /><p>Language: en</p>
%G en
%I CSIRO Publishing
%@ 1049-8001
%U http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/WF09005