2022-03-28-minutes-public-works-study-session

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do not give you all the details on how to do it because that information is available in the lessons or other BehavePlus guides. This publication is based in part on material in a series of self -study lessons that were de- veloped to provide a detailed step-by-step description of various aspects of BehavePlus. A list of available and planned lessons at the time of this writing is provided in Appendix B. The lessons are organized into units and provide detailed, step-by-step instructions and explanation. The Overview Unit describes what BehavePlus is and what it can do. The In- troduction Unit consists of four lessons that explain basic operation of the program. The Operation Unit provides additional lessons on more advanced aspects of operation. The Modeling Unit describes the fire modeling capabilities of BehavePlus. This publication primarily covers material in the Introduction and Operation Units, with some from the Modeling Unit. Again, the focus of this paper is program design, not the fire models. In addition to BehavePlus lessons, there are formal U.S. interagency training courses that include fire modeling concepts (http://training.nwcg.gov): S290—Intermediate Wildland Fire Behavior; S390—Introduction to Vildland Fire Behavior Calculations; 5490—Advanced Fire Behavior Calculations; S495—Geospatial Fire Analysis, Interpretation, and Applica- tion; and S590—Advanced Fire Behavior Interpretation. 2 Fire Modeling Capabilities The term model is used in this report for mathematical relationships that describe an as- pect of wildland fire (Andrews and Queen 2001). Models are generally equations that are published in scientific literature. Among the 40 or so mathematical models in BehavePlus are flame length, spotting distance, wind adjustment factor, and bark thickness (Table 1). BehavePlus (or the old BEHAVE) has sometimes incorrectly been equated with Rother- mel's surface fire spread model. While that model (Rothermel 1972) does form the foun- dation of the SURFACE module in BehavePlus, it is only one of the many fire models that comprise the system. Fuel models are not equations but are lists of values needed by the surface fire spread model. Therefore, the 53 standard fuel models are considered to be one "model." BehavePlus models are grouped into logical groups called modules. Included among the nine modules are SURFACE for surface fire behavior, CROWN for crown fire, and MORTALITY for tree mortality. Table 2 gives a short description of each module with notes on relationships among them. The Module Selection window is shown in Figure 1. Indentations indicate where linkages between modules are possible, with output from one module used as input to the other. If both modules are selected, the linkage is in ef- fect. For example, if both SURFACE and SCORCH are selected, they are "linked." The flame length that is calculated in SURFACE is used as input to the scorch height model in SCORCH. If SURFACE is not selected, the user must enter a flame length value into SCORCH. Using SCORCH without SURFACE can aid understanding of the scorch height model. It also allows a person to use observed flame length rather than calculated values. The term system is used for a computer program, nomogram, or some other packaging of models, interface, and data into a form that fire managers can use. BehavePlus, FARSITE (Finney 1998), F1amMap (Finney 2006), and FSPro (Finney and others, in press) can be considered a suite of fire behavior systems. A table showing the relationship among those USDA Forest Service Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-249. 2010