Weather Conditions and Forest fire Propagation—The Case of the Carmel Fire, December 2010

Abstract

All forest fires in Israel are man-made. However, the weather conditions preceding forest fires and during them have a crucial impact on their ignition, propagation, and damages. The most important parameters for rapid fire propagation are the wind speed, temperature, relative humidity, and the number of dry days since the last rain. Using these parameters, the potential conditions for wildfires in Israel were analyzed, and the autumn season was found to be the most dangerous one, as reflected also by the percentage of burnt area in each season. The calculated energy release during the 2010 Carmel Fire revealed that all fire-suppressing agents used by Israel and the international support were insufficient to suppress such a fire. The scenarios of future climate changes in the Middle-East predict an increase in favorable conditions for the rapid spread of forest fires. Therefore, a different fire strategy should be adopted, that is not just a fire suppression strategy, but a combined strategy of fire prevention measures and suppressing the fire when it bursts out.

Keywords:

• Air temperature
• forest fires
• latent heat
• Mt. Carmel
• relative humidity
• sharav
• wind regime