Fin's and Candle's Creative Contests

Engineering can be the most creative profession, but we engineers are in general not the best communicators nor the best at appreciating artistic work.

I always want to build on this issue and encourage a bit my engineering students' appreciation of communications and the arts. So this academic year, as in previous years, I started the courses with a Creative Contest, for both ME2 Heat Transfer, and IDX Combustion Science modules that I teach at Imperial College.

The instructions to participate were the following:

 "I have two extra copies of textbooks to give away. If interested, send me a poem, comic, drawing, painting, song, video, or anything creative that explains why you are taking this module. Art, wit and humour are allowed, even encouraged".

 
I show below the submissions. I was the sole jury and found two winners (the first two shown for each contest). Congratulations to the winners (I wish an extensive use your awards).

Fin's Creative Contest in ME2 Heat Transfer.

 

Candle's Creative Contest in IDX Combustion Science.

 

Previous years

2015 Fin's and Candle's Creative Contests in ME2 Heat Transfer and ME4 Combustion
2014 Fin's and Candle's Creative Contests in ME2 Heat Transfer and ME4 Combustion

Nature’s sport and the Burning Mountain

Figure 1. Newspaper excerpt from 1828 announcing an active volcano in Australia.

Thanks to his knowledge in geology and an investigation of the site, Reverend Charles Wilton ended the rumors of an active volcano in Australia (Fig. 1). In 1829, Rev. Wilton visited Mount Wingen in New South Wales, Australia, and pronounced the phenomenon to be unique, "one other example of nature’s sports", a fire that had been burning for a very long time, "far preceding the memory of man". Indeed, wingen is the word for fire in the aboriginal language of the local Wonaruah tribe.


Mount Wingen, 530 m above sea level, is the highest of two contiguous hills in the Upper Hunter Valley. It is located 25 km North of Scone via the New England Highway and approximately 4 hr drive from Sydney. Its official name is the Burning Mountain Nature Reserve, and I had the pleasure of visiting it in early February 2014 (Fig. 2). The visit fulfilled one of my most desired field trips. I was attending the 11th International Symposium on Fire Safety Science in New Zealand, and I could not forgive myself from a quick stop over to see the Burning Mountain.

Figure 2. Entry to the Nature Reserve of The Burning Mountain, including my symposium bag.

The nature's sport that Rev. Wilton was referring to is the smouldering combustion of a coal seam. The Burning Mountain is the best example of this natural phenomenon that slowly burns the underground coal when it becomes exposed to atmospheric air.  Smouldering is the slow, low-temperature, flameless burning that represents the most persistent type of combustion phenomena and leads to the largest and longest burning fires on Earth. This Australian coal seam started to burn more than 6,000 years ago, some scientists think more than 500,000 years ago. At least the British cannot be blame for it.

The fire is burning now about 30 m below ground. At a rate of 1 m per year, the fire has reached the top of the hill (shown in Figure 3). Because of the creeping spread rate, the slow and intense heat has created a landscape clear of any vegetation in an area 50 m around the hill top. The soil shows a beautiful colour palette of white sinter, yellow sulphate, black char and red iron oxide. Where the fire and heat has not reached yet, a healthy green forest of mature and tall trees can be seen on brown soil. Along the former trail of the fire path, the forest grows back slowly, and young and smaller trees can be seen on red soil. Once at the hilltop, it is easy to feel the hot combustion gases and the smell of sulfur released from multiple deep cracks. The site is surrounded by cracks, some are up to 0.5 m wide, which are more visible ahead of the fire than behind it. Further from the active site by about 20 m, the cracks do not emit gases which to me indicates that the airflow direction is into the seam, feeding the fire with vital oxygen.

Figure 3. The fire has now reached the top of the second hill, where the soil is also a multicolor palette of white sinter, yellow sulphate, black char and red iron oxide.

Some of the most interesting observations that the visitor can do are visually inspections of the trail the fire has left in the area as it has spread for centuries. The entry to the walking track is from the New England Highway, about 1km North of the current fire location (Fig 4). As the visitor walks in from the parking lot, the track goes up to the tallest of the two contiguous hills. Near the hill top, the visitor meets the first clear signs of the fire trail, and then the track follows it chronologically. The fire was burning below the hill top circa 1500s (my estimate). One can see a clear change to less dense vegetation, soil of a strong red colour and more large rocks on the ground. Then, the track goes down a few dozen meters to the saddle point between the two hills and then up to the current fire site. This saddle point is close to where the fire was when it was reported first and confused for a volcano in 1828. I think that the lower ground elevation at the saddle point means the distance between the free surface and the burning seam was at a minimum. Hence, I infer than the much increased air supply contributed to the ferocity of the burning and the plume of smoke ought to have been majestic. The depth to the seam might have been short enough that the coal walls could be seen glowing red. Lava they thought?. This would be nothing compared to the faint hot gases released now that the fire is again at a hill top and more than 30 m deep.

Fig 4. Google maps of the reserve showing the approximate track and the current location of the fire at the top of the second hill.

 An interesting observation that I could make during my visit is that after the hilltop, the forward path of the fire, just 20 m away, is on a very steep fall of 100 m down to the bed of a small river. If the coal seam is running just under the river, the fire could reach again massive proportions as in 1828. Or it could be that the coal seam does not continue after the hill top, and that the fire will naturally extinguish itself within my lifetime after more than 6,000 years burning. Either way, what a lucky historical coincidence for me to witness it happening. I will not miss another visit in the next decade.

The Burning Mountain is just one example. Thousands of underground coalmine fires have been identified around the world, especially in China, India and USA. Elusive, unpredictable and costly, coal fires burn indefinitely while there is fuel, choking the life out of a community and the environment while consuming a valuable energy resource. The associated financial costs run into millions of dollars including the loss of coal, closure of coal mines, damage to the environment and fire-fighting efforts. There are other well-documented cases like when in 1962 an abandoned mine pit in Centralia, Pennsylvania, USA was accidentally lit. Many unsuccessful attempts were made to extinguish it, letting the fire continue to burn until today after more than forty years. Geologist estimate that there is fuel for 250 years more of fire.


Recommended reading (and viewing) on smoldering fires:

• Abbott, W.E., 1918. Mt. Wingen and the Wingen Coal Measures. Angus & Robertson, Sydney. http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/21299713
• Mayer, W. , 2009, Geological observations by the Reverend Charles P. N. Wilton (1795 -1859) in New South Wales and his views on the relationship between religion and science, Geological Society, London, Special Publications 310, p197-209. http://dx.doi.og/10.1144/SP310.20
• Smouldering, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smouldering
• Smouldering Fires and Natural Fuels, by Guillermo Rein, Chapter 2 in:
  Fire Phenomena in the Earth System – An Interdisciplinary Approach to Fire Science, pp. 15–34, Wiley and Sons, 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118529539.ch2
• Stracher, G.B., Prakash, A. & Sokol, E.V. (eds) (2010) Coal and Peat Fires: A Global Perspective, 1st edn; vol. 1: Coal – Geology and Combustion. Elsevier Science. 
• Pennsylvania's 50-Year-Old Coal Fire by SciShow. www.youtube.com

Welcome Francesco to Imperial Haze Lab

Today was the first day of Francesco Restuccia at Imperial College London as new PhD student in m group. He joins the Imperial Haze Lab in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Francesco is from Italy. He became  a Mechanical Engineer from the University of Edinburgh in 2012, and then obtained an MSc degree from California Institute of Technology in 2014. At Caltech, Francesco studied numerically the problem of accidental ignition of liquid fuel tanks. At Edinburgh, he worked on smart distribution networks and renewable energies. He also spend time conducting experiments at CERN Cryogenics.

The preliminary title of his thesis is "Computational Study of Porous Reactive Media" and is funded by EPSRC. The aim of the thesis is to provide a better understanding of fundamental smouldering phenomena to aid in the mitigation and prevention of peat and coal fires. This is frontier research at the interface between combustion science and Earth sciences.

Distinguished award for peat fire paper

I am delighted to announce that our peat fire paper has received the 2013 Distinguished Paper Award on Fire Research at the 34th International Symposium on Combustion. This research award is given biannually by the Combustion Institute.

The work studies the chemistry of smouldering combustion of peat. Peat fires, like those causing haze episodes in South East Asia, are the largest fires on Earth but a poorly understood, yet extensive source of greenhouse gases, and are emerging as a hot topic in climate-change mitigation. These novel combustion experiments provide the framework to study smouldering dynamics by carefully varying the controlling mechanisms and providing burning conditions that otherwise cannot be obtained.This multidisciplinary paper merges the fields of combustion and geoscience, and serves as an example of mechanical engineering contributing to understand Earth-science disciplines like ecology, biodiversity, and biogeochemistry.

Keynote: When the soil burns to ash, and smouldering episodes of haze

I gave this morning the first keynote lecture at the 4th International Meeting of Fire Effects on Soil Properties, in the pretty and small city of Vilnius. The title was "Fate of Organic Matter and Pyrogenic Char in Smouldering Fires: when soils burn to ash". I have posted a copy of my slides below.

I started by making a direct reference to the ongoing haze episode in South East Asia, caused by smouldering peat megafires. Like most organic soils, peat is flammable, and dry peat is extremely flammable. This haze episode is expected to last one or two more months, and is leading to a respiratory health crisis and hundreds of millions in economic losses in the region. I then did a quick overview of some smouldering fires as a way of illustrating different fire phenomena  (1997 Indonesia, 2006 Scotland, 2008 North Carolina). After an overview of what smouldering combustion is, I then made a case for these fires to be considered the largest on Earth (the most persistent and longest leading to the highest consumption of fuel). I  reviewed the chemistry of peat fires and some of the laboratory work we have conducted to study their horizontal and vertical spread, and the role of moisture content. The last bit is collaboration with soil chemists on the signature left by smouldering fire for paleoenviromental reconstructions of peat core. I concluded with my global views; that smouldering poses a possitive feedback loop for climate change in the Earth system, and that there is a acute need for more research on the topic.

   Fate of Organic Matter and Pyrogenic Char in Smouldering Fires: when soils burn to ash

The lecture was well received with plenty of good questions during the session and the coffee break. In particular I got this question from an American scientists of what would be the best conditions for the production of charcoal/char; it really inspired me and gave me an idea for an experimental and modelling research paper: what is the heat pulse (peak and duration) that leads to the largest production of i) charcoal and ii) char. My guess is that charcoal is maximized by a strong but short pulse (akin to a quick flaming front) whereas char is maximized by the quenching of a propagating smouldering front. 


NOTE: The difference between charcoal and char is that the former, we call it alpha-char, is produced at lower temperatures such that the shape of the original biomass can be identified, and the former, we call it beta-char, is produced at higher temperatures and the shape of the original biomass cannot be identified.

Chemistry of peat fires

Proceedings of the Combustion Institute

NOTE: This paper received the Distinguished Paper Award on Fire Research at the 34^th International Symposium on Combustion by The Combustion Institute.

We have just published a paper in the Proceedings of the Combustion Institute on the chemistry of smouldering peat:

 "Study of the competing chemical reactions in the initiation and spread of smouldering combustion in peat" http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.proci.2012.05.060

Smouldering is the slow, low-temperature, flameless burning that represent the most persistent type of combustion phenomena and which leads to the largest and longest burning fires on Earth. Smouldering megafires in peat and coal deposits occur with some frequency during the dry season or eventual droughts in, for example, North America, Siberia, the British Isles, the subartic and South-East Asia.

In this work, we use an experimental methodology to study the smouldering combustion of samples of peat under a wide range burning conditions. By varying the oxygen concentration and the ignition conditions we investigate the competing pyrolysis and oxidation reactions.

We focused on the three main solid species involved in smouldering fires: peat, char and ash . It shows clearly how pyrolysis concentrates carbon in the char while a large fraction of the hydrogen is released, while the oxidation releases most of the carbon and concentrated the minerals in the ash which H, C and N contents are negligible. The fraction of carbon in char is ~1.5 times higher than in peat, and ~35 times higher than in ash. The change is even greater in terms of carbon density, it increases from 77 kg-C/m^3 in the peat to 133 kg-C/m^3 in the char, to then sharply drop to 0.7 kg-C/m^3 in ash.

The experiments clearly show that there are pyrolysis and oxidation reactions. Char is formed by pyrolysis and consumed by oxidation. So at the beginning of a test there is no char, and at the end only a small amount of char remains, but in between substantial amounts of char (~50% of initial weight) were momentarily formed. Smouldering produces and consumes its own char: it initially produces char through pyrolysis before being consumed by char oxidation reactions. The competing nature of the production and consumption char reactions has been experimentally shown (see figure below).

 Evolution of peat and char fractions through an experiment.

The virgin peat reacts during the first 15 min to produce char and ash. Thereafter, only char reactions take place producing ash. Tracking the amounts of peat and char at any given time shows that first char is formed. It reaches a maximum fraction (~50% of the initial mass) in 20 min and then slowly the char is consumed down to ash (10% mass). At the end of the experiment, 90% of the initial mass has been released as gases, leaving a void and a thin layer of ash.

By varying the oxygen concentration and the thermal conditions we investigate the competing pyrolysis and oxidation reactions at a fundamental combustion level. The figure below shows infrared images of the surface of samples at different oxygen levels (21% is normal air) during the early burning stages of ignition (5 min after first heat exposure). As the oxygen level is increased, the temperature of the sample surface increases (indicated by brighter colour) showing that although pyrolysis dominates in this early stages of spread, oxidation reactions also play a role.

 Infrared images of the sample at [O2] of 17%, 21%, 25% and 35%just 5 min after first heat exposure.

The results presented here can be used to advance our fundamental knowledge of large-scale smouldering wildfires which are currently not well understood.

 --
Title: "Study of the competing chemical reactions in the initiation and spread of smouldering combustion in peat"
By: Hadden, Rein and Belcher In: Proceedings of the Combustion Institute (in press), 2012. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.proci.2012.05.060

Workshop on Smouldering Wildfires and The Earth System

I Workshop on Smouldering Wildfires and the Earth System

at University of Edinburgh, King's Buildings

Fri 27 July 2012, from 9am to 1:30pm.

Taking advantage of the visit of a few brilliant researchers working on smouldering wildfires, I am organizing a small workshop on the topic for Friday 27 July to bring together fire dynamic, engineering and geosciences. Small, but the first of its kind. It is focus mostly on peat lands, but other ecosystems and fuels are welcome (eg, coal, organic soils, litter). All are invited (no fees), and interdisciplinary backgrounds and topics are specially welcome. If you want to attend or give a talk, please send me an email to G.Rein@imperial.ac.uk.

Some smouldering peat experiments will be conducted in the lab on Thursday afternoon. Workshop attendees are invited to join us to witness/help with the tests.

See google map here to the venue, Seminar room in the 3rd floor of Alexander Graham Bell Building, University of Edinburgh, King's Buildings campus.

"Smouldering fires, the slow, low-temperature, flameless burning, represent the most persistent type of combustion phenomena, and leads to the largest and oldest fires on Earth. Indeed, smouldering megafires of peat occur with some frequency in for example North America, Siberia, the British Isles and South-East Asia during the dry session. Smouldering fires propagate horizontally and vertically through organic layers of the ground and can reach very deep where large cracks or natural piping systems exist. This threatens to release ancient carbon stored deep into the soil. Once ignited, they are particularly difficult to extinguish despite extensive rains, weather changes, or fire-fighting attempts, and can persist for long periods of time (months, years, or even centuries), spreading into the ground and over extensive areas." from the chapter Smouldering Fires and Natural Fuels, 2013, written by G Rein for an incoming Wiley book "

Fire Phenomena in the Earth System – An Interdisciplinary Approach to Fire Science".

UPDATE: Incidentally, I have just been interviewed for GeoLog, the blog of the European Geoscience Union, on smouldering fires and accidental burning of ancient carbon.

Final Programme (click on title to see pdf of presentation slides):

- Dr Guillermo Rein from Imperial College London (UK) to give an overview of smouldering fires on the Earth System.
- Dr Rory Hadden from University of Western Ontario (Canada) to talk about carbon emissions from smouldering fires.
- Dr Matt Davies, University of Glasgow (UK) to talk about peat fires and ecology in Scotland.
- Dr Adam Watts from University of Florida (USA) to talk about the role of fires in tropical wetlands.
- Nuria Prat from University College Dublin (Ireland) to talk about postfire effects of smouldering peat in a boreal pine forest.
- Dr Haixiang Chen from State Key Laboratory of Fire Science (China) to talk about computational modelling of smouldering fire.
- Dr Jon Yearsley from University College Dublin (Ireland) to talk about celullar automata modelling of peat fires.
- Keith Torrance from University of Strathclyde (UK) and University of Alaska (USA) to talk on smouldering coal heaps in Lanarkshire, Scotland.
- Dr Christine Switzer  from University of Strathclyde (UK)  to talk about the chemical and physical changes induced by smouldering on inert soil samples.

Smouldering fire of large compost heap in Havelock

After Hurricane Irene made landfall on Aug 27, 2011, the city of Havelock in North Carolina (USA) decided to shred all damaged trees and vegetation and collect them in a large heap. The resulting biomass stockpile was ~4000 m^3 in volume, the equivalent capacity of a 16 m cube. The idea was to produce plenty of free compost for the city.

But as the heap dried and decomposed, on its way to become compost, it also started to self-heat and a smouldering fire was initiated without any external source. All organic porous media is known to self-heat under the right environmental conditions of low moisture, poor ventilation and large stockpiles, and these were met in the Havelock heap. Havelock News reports that the fire was first detected on Jan 17, 2012, probably becuase of large and visible off-gassing. This means that the first hotspots formed several weeks before that, maybe during early Fall. After it was detected, the Fire Havelock Fire and Rescue Department and the US Forest Service were called in. They dosed large amounts of water and spread the heap material over a wider area to quench the fire. And it worked, so far. But hotspots deep into the heap are going to be very difficult to cool down completely.

A bulldozer spreads out the pile of smouldering biomass in Havelock. Photo by Drew C. Wilson/Havelock News.

Self-heating
In this poster that I presented recently, I explained self-heating as follows:

"Self-heating refers to the tendency of certain reactive solids in oxidative atmospheres to spontaneous exothermic reactions at low or ambient temperatures. This is a well known problem for industries transporting and storing porous carbon-rich materials [eg, peat, biochar, coal, char and most organic powders]. Initially, small amounts of heat are released and accumulate during longer times when heat losses are low (eg, large stockpiles, high ambient temperatures). This results in a sustained increase of temperature without any external heat source. Above a certain temperature, the process self-accelerates and leads to thermal run away. For example, Semenov’s Ignition Theory describes mathematically the process as controlled by heat generation and heat losses"

Mititating Actions
The main culprit in the case of the Havelock heap seems to be its large size. In other to prevent self-heating events, stockpiles must be kept below a certain critical size. The fact that the fire was detected in winter time when ambient temperatures are low (between -1 and 10 C), testifies to the strong reactivity of the biomass heap. But there are other contributing factors. In order to mitigate the risk of self-heating fires, heaps ought to be designed complying with the following principles:  

*Stockpile size: As the size of the pile is made smaller, heat losses increase and the risk of self-heating is reduced. The maximum safe stockpile size is given by the ambient temperature and reactivity of the material.  *Wetting: Material with large moisture contents do not ignite.  
*Ventilation: Add design features that enhance natural ventilation and cooling.
*Inertation: Reduce reactivity by mixing the biomass with inert material like sand (see here).

Where these observed in this case?

Smouldering and self-sustaining reactions in solids: an experimental approach

I am delighted to announce that the PhD thesis of my student Rory is now online:

Smouldering and self-sustaining reactions in solids: an experimental approach (clik on title for pdf)
by Rory Hadden, PhD, University of Edinburgh, 2011 

The Ostedijk on 21st February (the 5th day) after
the hold was opened and before specialized firefighting activities had
commenced. Derived from photograph courtesy of Agencia EFE.

Abstract: Smouldering combustion governs the burning of many materials in the built and natural environments. Smouldering is flameless, heterogeneous combustion which occurs when oxygen reacts with the surface of a solid fuel. Understanding the conditions which will result in the ignition and smouldering of a porous fuel is important and the phenomena involved are complex and coupled, involving heat and mass transfer, and chemical kinetics. This thesis reports experimental studies of the ignition, spread, suppression and emissions from reactions in porous media. Similar experimental techniques are shown in this thesis to be applicable when studying a wide range of solids which undergo self-sustaining reactions. This thesis is presented in a manuscript style. Each chapter takes the form of an independent paper which has been prepared for journal publication and as such, each chapter can stand on its own as a piece of research. A final chapter summarizes the findings and conclusions and suggests further areas of research.

The evolution of char and peat fractions throughout the
experiment and the mass loss rate. The fraction of peat decreases and
the fraction of char increases from the beginning of the experiment until
around 20 min. During this period, the pyrolysis front is propagating
through the sample, resulting in the formation of char from the thermal
decomposition of peat. After 20 min, the pyrolysis front has propagated
through the sample and the resulting char is undergoing oxidation to
form ash and gaseous products. Error bars represent the average error
from three repeats.

Chapter 1 presents a study of self-sustaining decomposition (SSD) of NPK ammonium-nitrate-containing inorganic fertilizer. Findings were applied to the events that occurred aboard the Ostedijk in 2007.

Chapter 2 is a study of smoulder in polyurethane foam to study the relationship between sample size, critical heat flux and spread rate. This is important becuase smouldering fires are the leading cause of residential fire deaths in developed countries and polyurethane foam is ubiquitous in the modern world.

Chapter 3 presents an experimental investigation into the ignition of porous fuels by hot particles. This is related to the problem of spotting ember ignition in wildland fires which is a major, but poorly understood, spread mechanism. The process of spotting occurs in wildland fires when fire-lofted embers or hot particles land downwind, leading to ignition of new, discrete fires.

Chapter 4 is an investigation into the suppression of smouldering coal. Subsurface coal fires are a significant global problem with fires in China alone estimated to consume up to 200 million tons of coal per year. As global demand for coal increases, accidental fires are a waste of a useful energy resource as well as a source of pollution and greenhouse gases. The results are the first attempt reported in the literature to study the suppression of these fires under controlled laboratory conditions.

The mass flux of CO (red) and CO2 (blue) for experiments
in which flaming was ignited using a pilot flame (solid) and where
only smoulder was observed (dashed). The shaded region represents
the duration of the flaming. The inset details differences in emissions
during the period of flaming.

Chapter 5 presents an experimental investigation of the smouldering behaviour of peat. This is of particular interest in understanding the impact of smouldering fires on the earth system. The longer burn durations and different combustion dynamics of smouldering compared to flaming means that they have been shown to consume large amounts of biomass in, and contribute significantly to the emissions from, natural fires occurring in peatlands. The dynamics of smouldering peat in shallow, strong fronts was studied in the Fire Propagation Apparatus and a smoulder reaction framework with two burning regimes is presented.

Chapter 6 complements Chapter 5 with an analysis of the CO and CO2 emissions for smouldering and flaming peat. This data can be used with large-scale measurement techniques to improve emission estimates. The emissions are found to be dependent of the burning regime and the type of combustion with flaming resulting in higher fluxes of CO2 and lower fluxes of CO compared to peat smouldering. The large majority of emissions (85% of CO2 and 97% of CO) are released during the smoulder phase of the reaction. This highlights the differences in the chemical processes occurring under these two modes of combustion.

Chapter 7 summarizes the research undertaken in this thesis and presents possible further work.

Smouldering wildfire burning in New Orleans

The organic soil of Loiusiana marshes near New Orleans is smouldering in at least two separated locations. The fire continues to slowly spread after several days, and the smoke is now affecting town up to 160 km away. The Louisiana National Guard has been called in to help in the suppresion.

Smouldering fires of organic soils like peat burn underground and are the most difficult fire pheonmena on Earth to extingish. The top firefighter in Loiusiana said it better: "Once it’s underground, it’s next to impossible to fight. You can’t bring enough water to wet down that soil".

And note that the same article where the coment was made, report that the smouldering peat fires are still smouldering in the Great Dismal Swamp even after the arrival of hurricane Irene!

Quenching the Reactive Earth - talk given at UC Berkeley

Quenching the Reactive Earth - Accidental Burning of Fossil-Fuels and Geoengineering

I recently gave a research seminar at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California where I presented some of my research ideas. I start by summarizing my academic career to date and then proceed to talk about smouldering mega fires of natural coal and peat deposits. I have termed these "accidental burning of fossil-fuels".

Smouldering mega fire in North Carolina Wildlife Refuge

A peat fire has been burning in North Carolina since May 4 inside the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. It is only 75% contain so far, and the higher summer temperatures are arriving fast. It could burn for several more months.

It is believed to had started with a lightning strike [ref]. A recent local article reports "crews pump millions of gallons of water on stubborn ground fire that is part of the larger Pains Bay fire"

This brings reminisces of the 2008 Evans Road fire in the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge (NC, not far from Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge). The initial flaming fronts were controlled within days, but the smouldering fire burned for 6 more months and consumed the organic soil down to 1 m deep (see hanging tree in the 2008 photo). 16000 ha were destroyed (2 times the year average for North Carolina). More than 400 firefighters stopped this smouldering mega fire by flooding and excavating the peat. Estimated costs in suppression alone are near $20 million. It was also believed to had started with a lightning strike.

Note that as opposed to flaming fires of forest land that can regrow in 50 to 100 years, peat is a pre-fossil fuel (or ancient carbon as Andy Revkin labelled in his twit), it takes >10,000 year to form. Thus peat fires are a net source of carbon emissions and provide a positive feedback to climate change. This accidental fossil-fuel burning taking place now releases carbon that will not be recaptured by new peat until the year 12011. By then, the Earth climate system had plenty of time to response and lead to a possible global change. I discussed this a recent talk I gave at the last European Geoscience Union, see previous blog entry here and insert below. The title was "Climate Feedbacks on Smouldering Earth".

Climate Feedbacks on Smouldering Earth (talk at EGU Vienna 2011)

Forecasting Fire Dynamics - IOP talk

Yesterday 23 May, I gave this invited talk on Forecasting Fire Dynamics at the Institute of Physics Combustion Group meeting on Combustion Modelling for Challenging Applications, University of Southampton.

It is based on the PhD thesis of Wolfram Jahn (2010), my very first PhD student.

Forecasting Fire Dynamics IOP May 2011

Abstract
The concept of fire forecast could lead to a paradigm shift in the response to fire emergencies, providing the Fire Service with essential information borne from the combination of sensor observations and computer modelling. Ideas are being borrowed from weather forecast and high performance computing so the technology is currently being developed. Many questions remain to be answered in the next decade but preliminary working models (zone model and CFD) based on an inverse problem approach are already proving predictions with positive lead times. This talk presents the problem framework and explores concepts and results developed to date.

Fundamentals of Combustion Processes, Springer 2011

Spinger has published a new book on combustion. It is based on the long-running undergraduate course at UC Berkeley ME140 Combustion Processes taught originally by Prof Carlos Fernandez-Pello (my former PhD supervisor):

Fundamentals of Combustion Processes 2011, Springer (Amazon $79.11)

The book is very accessible to engineering students interested in combustion but not advanced in their thermal science studies yet. There are few, or none, books for this introductory level. The accompanying dozen videos of laboratory demonstration act as a great illustration of each chapter content.
I am very familiar with the course and the labs, and I highly recommend the textbook for an introductory course. I was Teaching Assistant of this course for four semesters from 2002 to 2005. Such good memories, I loved it.

The park that came back from the dead

I was quoted in the article that The Independent published last Saturday on Spain's wetlands National Park Las Tablas de Daimiel:


The park that came back from the dead

The article quotes some of my comments published in the 2010 interview for El Pais. They said Guillermo Reim, but sure the meant Rein :).

The article summarizes the recent story of the park, from being completely dry due to 5-year drought, to the initiation of smouldering peat fires in summer of 2009, and then to sudden massive rain floods that arrived in early 2010. Now the Park is beautiful. See above a photo-comparison that I made; Nov 2009 vs. Aug 2010. But for how long will the park be flooded as is its natural state? No one knows for certain, and most politicians are not interested in the issue.