3.2.1. Characteristics of the Fire Risk Weather Index
The FFMC is calculated based on the water content of the fine fuel in the weather index system. Consequently, the moisture code is the most direct indicator of its water content and is a relatively simple indicator to represent both its flammability and combustibility, with higher values indicating higher fire risk levels. With regard to the formation of fires, in addition to the moisture of the fine fuel reaching combustible and flammable conditions, the wind speed shall determine whether it can spread to form a large fire. Hence, the ISI calculated based on FFMC and wind speed jointly can be a better representation of the daily fire risk. This research has selected 2019 and 2020 as representative years and selected Hebei Weichang Station (54311), Beijing Mentougou Station (54505), and Shanxi Qinyuan Station (53875) as the representative meteorological stations to analyze the changing characteristics of FFMC and ISI. The results, as shown in
Figure 6 and
Figure 7, are summarized as follows:
Firstly, FFMC fluctuates considerably more frequently during the year, particularly in summer, and the frequency is closely related to the number of effective precipitation days in that year. Furthermore, FFMC values decrease significantly on rainfall days followed by a rapid rebound as soon as the rainfall ends, demonstrating the rapid response characteristics of the fine fuel moisture to precipitation wetting and evaporation drying processes. Secondly, the FFMC values are close to around 90 for most of the year, with values above 90 occurring in every season, meaning that there are still periods when the dead fuel remains combustible and flammable during the rainy season in summer and autumn. Finally, the most frequent occurrence of FFMC values greater than 90 on multiple consecutive days appears in spring, and its highest values in the year occur from March to May, which is the 90 to 150-day sequence in the graph. The ISI is similar to the FFMC in that both are characterized by high-frequency variation throughout the year, with large numerical changes that are influenced by wind speed as well as by precipitation. The above characteristics illustrate that there is a large variation in daily fire risk during the annual winter and spring fire season, meaning that there are priority and non-priority dates for fire prevention.The ISI better reflects the trend in fire risk over the course of the year, although it can vary depending on the year, the ISI is significantly higher from March to May and significantly lower in July to early August each year than in other months.
By combining the above analysis of variations for both FFMC and ISI, it can be concluded that the occurrence of fire is characterized by high-frequency and significant fluctuating changes in daily variation due to its dependence on the moisture content of combustibles and weather conditions, that is, the risk level of a fire is not progressive and slowly changing. A very high fire risk day can change to low risk within a few hours due to rainfall, while after rainfall, the fine fuel can lose moisture so quickly that it can become flammable within a few days and the low-risk level can escalate to high-risk within a short period of time.
As a result, the prediction and analysis of the fire risk weather index enable a precise grasp of fire risk trends in daily fire management, timely monitoring and prediction of high-risk periods and the adoption of effective measures to prevent fires, as well as saving unnecessary control costs during low-risk periods.
3.2.4. Typical Fire Weather Index Analysis
Following the characterization analysis and classification of application levels of the fire risk weather index in the previous section, this section presents the pre-disaster as well as in-disaster fire risk weather characteristics analysis of four typical fires in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei-Shanxi region in recent years by using FFMC and ISI in the weather index system. The four typical fires were the forest fire in Nanshi Village, Qinhe Township, Qinyuan County on 14 March 2019, Wangtao Township, Qinyuan County on 30 March 2019, Pinggu and Miyun District on 30 March 2019, and Shecheng Township, Yushe County on 17 March 2020.
Forest Fire in Qinyuan on 14 March 2019
On 14 March 2019 at 3 pm, a forest fire occurred in Nanshi Village, Qinhe Town, Qinyuan County, Shanxi Province. Ground rescue forces of more than 2000 local people in Qinyuan County were deployed to fight the fire. During the fire-fighting process, a sudden change in wind direction led to seven forest firefighters being trapped in the fire, of whom one was slightly injured and six unfortunately sacrificed after an ineffective rescue attempt. Most of the six firefighters who died were born after the 1990s, and one of them was only 19 years old. We would like to pay tribute to the memory of the deceased.
A meteorological station, the Qinyuan Station (53875), was located in the vicinity of the fire, which was in close proximity to the fire. No precipitation was recorded at the station during the previous fifteen days of the fire, while there were some fluctuations in temperature (
Figure 10a), with a maximum temperature of 16°C on 5 March, followed by a maximum temperature of 13.7°C on the day that the fire started (14 March) and 13.3°C at the moment of the fire.
The relative air moisture level was generally decreasing, with a minimum daily relative moisture of 24% on 8 March, compared to 9% on the fire starting day, meaning that the air was extremely dry. The wind speed was relatively high for the fifteen days prior to the fire(
Figure 10b), especially on the fire starting day when the maximum hourly average wind speed reached 6.3 m/s, while the wind speed was 5.3 m/s at the time when the fire started, that is, at 3 pm on 14 March. On the fire starting day, the temperature, relative moisture and wind speed provided favorable conditions for the rapid spread of the fire.
Figure 10.
Trends in meteorological elements before and during the Qinyuan fire (14 March).
Figure 10.
Trends in meteorological elements before and during the Qinyuan fire (14 March).
As can be observed from the FFMC and ISI in the fire risk weather index (
Figure 11), the fire risk level in the Qingyuan area has gradually increased since March and remained very high after March 5. From 3 to 6 March, the temperature rebounded, the air moisture dropped and the water content of combustibles decreased rapidly, with the FFMC reaching 95.8 on 6 March and the ISI reaching 11.5. On 7 and 8 March, due to the increase in the air moisture and the drop in temperature, the water content of combustibles increased marginally. The FFMC has maintained a continuous increase since 9 March. The FFMC reached 95.9 and the ISI reached 13.8 on the fire starting day (14 March), which is in a relatively extreme high fire risk condition.
Forest Fire in Qinyuan on 30 March 2019
The forest firefighting in Qinyuan on 30 March was one of the top ten typical cases of national emergency rescue in 2019. At 13:00 on 29 March 2019, the forest fire in Wangtao Village, Wangtao Township, Qinyuan County, Shanxi Province, was sparked by a collision of overhead aluminum stranded wires in a chicken farm, which eventually led to a damaged forest area of about 942 hectares, with the fire spreading in a way that threatened 39 administrative villages and 51 natural villages in six nearby townships, as well as 18 industrial and mining enterprises with more than 20000 people.
During the firefighting process, a total of 15000 people, including forest firefighters, urban firefighters, the People’s Liberation Army, armed police officers, and professional firefighting teams, as well as more than 280 units of firefighting vehicles, excavators and other large machinery were deployed from the ground forces. In terms of air rescue forces, a total of 14 aircraft were mobilized. More than 9000 people from affected villages and townships were relocated during the firefighting, and various technical means of firefighting such as chemical, aviation, engineering, and manual work were implemented. Eventually, after seven days of uninterrupted fighting, the open fire was all put out at 10:00 on 5 April.
The meteorological station closer to the fire was the Qinyuan Station (53875), where no effective precipitation was observed in the fifteen days prior to the occurrence of the fire, and there were wide fluctuations in temperature, moisture and wind speed (
Figure 12a). The temperature on March 26 was slightly higher than 18°C and on March 29 was slightly lower than 12°C.. From 21 to 27 March, the air was very dry for several consecutive days, with a daily minimum relative moisture on March 26 was higher than 5%. The daily minimum relative air moisture on March 30 (fire incident) was higher than 13%.The wind was gusty on 19, 28 and 29 March, with a daily maximum hourly average wind speed of 6.6m/s on the day when the fire started(
Figure 12b).
As can be observed from the FFMC and ISI prior to the fire (
Figure 13), the FFMC was above 92 during the fifteen days prior to the fire, placing it above the high fire risk level. Affected by the relative moisture of the air, the combustible moisture increased slightly from 16 to 20 March and the ISI decreased. However, from 21 March onwards, temperatures rebounded rapidly, with the relative moisture of the air remaining extremely low, the moisture of combustibles decreased quickly and the fire risk level continued to rise. On 26 March, the FFMC reached an extreme level of 98.2 with the ISI reaching 16. On the day when the fire started (29 March), the FFMC was 95.8 with the ISI reaching 13.5 and remained at this level for the next four days, making combustibles dry and flammable and not conducive to fire fighting.
From the above analysis, and combined with the distribution frequency of the weather indices at the Qinyuan Station, the Qinyuan area has reached a very high fire risk level on 24 March and the day when the fire started should be in the red fire risk level period.
Forest Fire in Pinggu and Miyun District on 30 March 2019
At around 12:00 on 30 March 2019, a hill fire occurred in the south of the village of Gaogezhuang, East Shaoqu Town, Miyun District, Beijing. Six villagers, including Zheng, were repairing a water pipe in a woodland in Gaogezhuang Village when they accidentally set the weeds on fire and triggered a hill fire, which caused the fire line to spread rapidly to the direction of North Jishan Village, Liujiadian Town, Pinggu District due to the high wind speed on that day. About 3000 personnel and over 500 forest firefighters, including over 150 from the mobile detachment of Forest Fire Control Bureau of the State Ministry of Emergency Management and over 350 from the Jilin Forest Fire Brigade based in Tangshan, were involved in the rescue. In addition, more than 400 people from 19 teams from various districts and counties in Beijing, Hebei and Tianjin, and more than 2000 people from local troops and militia emergency units also participated in the firefighting. By the morning of 31 March, all open fires were put out, with an area of about 0.43 km
2 of forest damage and no casualties (
https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1629435982617314632&wfr=spider&for=pc&searchword=2019%E5%B9%B43%E6%9C%8830%E6%97%A5%E5%AF%86%E4%BA%91%E7%81%AB%E7%81%BE).
According to the meteorological stations close to the fire, Miyun Station (54416) and Pinggu Station (54424), there was 1mm of precipitation in Miyun on 20 March and 1.9mm in Pinggu in the fifteen days before the fire, while there was no precipitation on the other days.
In terms of temperature, there was a large variation in temperature prior to the fire (
Figure 14), which, combined with the variation in wind speed, indicates that there were two significant wind and cooling processes, with daily maximum temperatures reaching 23°C and 22.5°C in Pinggu and Miyun respectively on 18 March, compared to 8.6°C in Pinggu and 9.1°C in Miyun on 28 March. At the moment of the fire starting at 12:00 on 30 March, the temperature in Pinggu was 9.1°C and 8.4°C in Miyun.
Both the relative moisture and wind speed were also affected by the two weather processes, with the maximum hourly average wind speed of 8.5m/s in Pinggu and 6.6 m/s in Miyun on the day when the fire started, and the minimum relative moisture of 10% in Pinggu and 13% in Miyun. At 12:00 on 30 March, the time when the fire started, the hourly average wind speed was 7.5 m/s in Pinggu and 4.3 m/s in Miyun, and the relative moisture was 14% in Pinggu and 17% in Miyun. The above-mentioned conditions of moisture and wind speed were very conducive to the spread of the fire and created a tremendous challenge for the firefighting and rescue work.
Both FFMC and ISI (
Figure 15) provide a comprehensive view of the change in risk before and after the fire. In particular, influenced by precipitation, the FFMC in both areas was below 90 on 20 March and the fire risk level dropped to low risk. After 21 March, as temperatures rebounded and air moisture levels continued to be low, the water content of combustibles dropped rapidly and the FFMC in both districts exceeded 96 on 25 March, and the ISI also exceeded 13, making it a very high fire risk level. Despite the increase in relative moisture and drop in temperature on 28 March, the moisture content of combustibles rebounded more slowly and the FFMC remained above 93. On the day when the fire started, the FFMC was 94.4 in Pinggu and 93.4 in Miyun, while the ISI was 12.2 in Pinggu and 9.7 in Miyun.
Forest Fire in Yushe on 17 March 2020
At 11:00 on 17 March 2020, a fire occurred in the west of Jiao Hongsi Village, Shecheng Town, Yushe County, Shanxi Province. The location of the fire was in the mountainous area at the junction of Yushe County, Heshun County, Taigu County and Yuci County, with complicated terrain, several cliffs, and dense vegetation. A total of 1400 people, including Inner Mongolia forest firefighters, Jilin forest firefighters and Gansu forest firefighters, 1666 people from the Shanxi Armed Police Force, 1126 people from the Militia Emergency Response Unit, 726 people from professional firefighting teams in Shanxi Province, and about 2000 local cadres and residents, were put in to fight the fire on the ground. A total of five helicopters and six fixed-wing aircraft were put into the air rescue force. During the rescue process, 121 villagers were evacuated and properly housed. The firefighting process took seven days in total, and by 7:00 on 24 March 2020, all open fires were put out and entered the stage of cleaning and guarding the area.
According to the meteorological station closer to the fire, Yushe Station (53787), which recorded 0.1mm and 0.2mm of precipitation on 8 March and 9 March respectively in the fifteen days before the fire, it was difficult to effectively mitigate the fire danger with the trace amount of precipitation. On the last day of the fire rescue, 24 March, there was 3.9 mm of precipitation, which effectively contributed to putting out the open fire and clearing the fire area.
Temperatures in the Yushe area fluctuated over the fifteen days prior to the fire but showed an overall upward trend (
Figure 16). The daily maximum temperature on the day when the fire started reached 19.4°C and remained high for several days afterwards. The relative air moisture level was the opposite of the temperature trend, with the daily minimum relative moisture level remaining high at the beginning of the month, with a corresponding average of 27.4% from 2 to 8 March, but dropping rapidly from 9 March to only 8% on the day when the fire started. In terms of wind speed, the hourly average wind speed at midday on the day when the fire started reached 5.2m/s and the maximum hourly average wind speed on 18 March was 12.1m/s, reaching a force 6 wind level, making it extremely difficult for fire fighting and rescue.
In terms of the weather indices (
Figure 17), the FFMC rose continuously from 84.2 at the beginning of the month to a very high level of 96.7 on the day when the fire started, while the ISI rose from 2.5 at the beginning of the month to 14.1 on the day when the fire started, which was a very high fire risk level, and remained high for the next 6 days, indicating that the weather conditions and the water content of combustibles after the fire started were very conducive to the spread of the fire. By 24 March, with 3.9mm of precipitation on that day, the moisture content of combustibles rose rapidly and the FFMC decreased to 65, reaching a difficult-to-ignite level, with a consequent decrease in ISI to 0.6, to a difficult-to-spread level, and the fire risk level turned to low risk.
With the significant losses, long duration and negative social impacts, these four fires are very typical forest and grassland fire events, which are of great analytical and research significance. This chapter provides a preliminary review of the meteorological conditions and fire risk indices before and during the four fires as well as a brief analysis of the weather factors of the fires [
26].
On balance, the FFMC values on the day when the above four fires started were 94, 95.8, 96.7 and 95.9, respectively, with ISI values of 12, 13.5, 13.8 and 14, respectively, all of which are high or very high risk levels. It can be concluded that in daily fire prevention management, it is important to take the weather indices as reference to timely issue high level fire risk warnings and take fire source control measures.