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Eruptive Fires

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Encyclopedia of Wildfires and Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fires

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Synonyms

Canyon fire; Chimney effect

Definition

Eruptive fires are those wildland fires that exhibit, in a given period of time, a very rapid increase of their head fire rate of spread (ROS) that is accompanied by the release of a very large amount of thermal energy and by the formation of a large convection column that resembles that of a volcano (cf. Fig. 1). It is a transitory process in which, due to the feedback between the fire and the surrounding environment, the combustion process at the head of the fire is enhanced and its ROS increases continuously and may reach very high values.

Eruptive Fires, Fig. 1
figure 55 figure 55

Occurrence of a fire eruption in a wildfire in Sertã, Portugal, in 2003. (Photo of the authors)

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Forest Fire Research Centre, Association for the Development of Industrial Aerodynamics, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Domingos X. Viegas

  2. Association for the Development of Industrial Aerodynamics, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    J. Raposo

Authors
  1. Domingos X. Viegas
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  2. J. Raposo
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Domingos X. Viegas .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Fire Research Division, Engineering Laboratory (EL), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD, USA

    Samuel L. Manzello

Section Editor information

  1. USDA Forest Service, RMRS Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory, Missoula, MT, USA

    Sara McAllister

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Viegas, D., Raposo, J. (2020). Eruptive Fires. In: Manzello, S.L. (eds) Encyclopedia of Wildfires and Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fires. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52090-2_21

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