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Establishes the Integrated Rural Fire Management System in the continental territory and defines its operating rules.
[This diploma was revoked by Decree-Law no. 82/2021, of October 13] Establishes the measures and actions to be developed within the National Forest Firefighting System, in particular Articles 15th and 16th
Article 203rd on specific fuel management rules for 2020.
Amendment of the exceptional and temporary measures concerning the COVID-19 pandemic with the correction resulting from Declaration nr. 18-C/2020 of 5th of May, in particular Article 35thc on suspension and extension of deadlines for fuel management activities.
Legal Regime applicable to afforestation and reforestation actions.
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Os Debates Florestas e Legislação, organizados pelo Instituto Jurídico da Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Coimbra, afirmaram já o seu papel nas reflexões académicas e discussões profissionais sobre os vários regimes jurídicos aplicáveis a florestas e incêndios em Portugal.
Nesta linha, os IV Debates Florestas e Legislação debruçaram‑se sobre uma peça legislativa há muito aguardada: o Sistema de Gestão Integrada de Fogos Rurais (SGIFR), aprovado pela Lei n.º 82/2021, de 13 de outubro, que tem como objetivo declarado contribuir para um “território mais resiliente, viável e gerador de valor”, através de, entre outras medidas, “a adoção de boas práticas no ordenamento e gestão da paisagem, nomeadamente a execução e manutenção de faixas de gestão de combustível, a eliminação e reaproveitamento de sobrantes, a renovação de pastagens ou os mosaicos agrossilvopastoris”.
Recolhem‑se no presente livro coletivo, reflexões iniciais sobre algumas das medidas introduzidas ou reconfiguradas pelo SGIFR, fazendo‑se delas um primeiro balanço e antecipando a sua concretização (e, naturalmente, também das suas dificuldades de concretização) na prática nacional.
Background: Jet fires and boiling liquid expanding vapour explosions (BLEVEs) are potential events when a vessel containing liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is exposed to fire. Events involving domestic LPG tanks have occurred at wildland–urban interface areas in Portugal, the USA, Spain and Greece.
Aims: Evaluation of the pressure relief device (PRD), the type of cylinder and the effects of jet fires and BLEVEs.
Methods: LPG cylinders manufactured with steel and composite materials were exposed to fire. Hydrostatic tests were carried out to compare the burst pressure without fire influence. Fourteen accidents that occurred during wildfires are described.
Key results: The presence of a PRD and the right choice of type of cylinder as well as cylinder location may avert major accidents. The jet fires and fireball radiation are also described, as well as the maximum distance reached by cylinder fragments.
Conclusions: The tests showed that the burst pressure in the test of a cylinder without PRD under fire was significantly lower when compared with the hydrostatic tests.
Implications: Lastly, recommendations to avoid accidents are made.
Citation proposal:
Barbosa Thiago Fernandes, Reis Luís, Raposo Jorge, Rodrigues Tiago, Viegas Domingos Xavier (2023) LPG stored at the wildland–urban interface: recent events and the effects of jet fires and BLEVE. International Journal of Wildland Fire 32, 388-402.
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has become a widely used tool for predicting hazardous scenarios. The present study aimed to assess CFD prediction applied to LPG containers under heating. Thus, two cylinders, each filled with propane or butane, were experimentally exposed to fire, and the pressure increment was recorded. The results were compared with those provided by a CFD method (Ansys Fluent). The limitations of the method are discussed, and a trend in the error increment and its relation to the reduced temperature increment are presented. The results obtained show that the computational method had a good agreement, with a relative error of 19% at a reduced temperature equal to 2. Furthermore, the method had a better fit with heavier alkanes, as the butane was less influenced by temperature overestimation compared with propane.
Citation proposal:
Barbosa TF, Viegas DX, Modarres M, Almeida M. Heat-Induced Increase in LPG Pressure: Experimental and CFD Prediction Study. Processes. 2023; 11(7):1930.
Fuel management areas (FMA) can be classified depending on their different objectives, as primary, secondary and tertiary, and can be made up of firebreaks when fuels are totally removed, fuel breaks and shaded fuel breaks when land remains covered by vegetation, but fuels are reduced in volume and flammability. Given the recognized importance of these areas (as defensible spaces), but also their variety, they may be found in several legislations but regulated in quite different modes. In general terms, however, it is possible to observe that there are common features which are considered in the legal regulation of fuel management, mostly at the wildland-urban interface: the location of the land; its wildfire hazardousness and the type of activity and vegetation present on the property and its surroundings. Portuguese legislation distinguishes between primary, secondary and tertiary fuel management areas, but adopts a very simplified approach to secondary FMA, considering only the type of activity at hand and the type of land (forest or agricultural) in the surroundings, and no other relevant factors as topography, climate and concrete vegetation. This contribution focuses on secondary areas and defines their main traits, from the point of view of legal regulation, and also the difficulties in their operationalisation.
This article is an output of the project House Refuge (PCIF/AGT/0109/2018), funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology.
Reference proposal:
Lopes, D.; Vitali, K.T. (2022). Legal Regulation of Fuel Management Areas. In “Advances in Forest Fire research 2022. ISBN: 978-989-26-2297-2. Pp 661-665.
The large fires in recent years have caused tragic episodes that have led to the death of many hundreds of people and the loss of buildings of great social and economic value. Several of these impacts could have been avoided if the fuel management around buildings had been appropriate. Many studies on flammability are dedicated to wild fuels present in the forests, shrublands or grasslands. However, the existing data on the vegetation typical of the closest surroundings to the constructions (e.g., gardens) is scarce. Besides being the fuels closest to the buildings, these are fuels that normally can be effectively managed by the building owners, i.e., their management is within the reach of the common citizens.
This work aimed to characterize the flammability parameters for several typical garden species in the Mediterranean Basin. An extensive experimental program was carried out to characterize individual plants of the following species: holly (Ilex aquifolium), linden (Tilia nobilis), anacardia (Rhus typhina), laurel (Laurus nobilis), olive tree (Olea europaea), pacific madrone (Arbutus menziesii), apple tree (Malus sylvestris), cherry tree (Prunus avium), sloe (Prunus Spinosa), fig tree (Ficus carica), loquat (Eriobotrya japonica), kiwi plant (Actinidia delicacy), grapevine (Vitis vinifera), hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla), oleander (Nerium oleander), ivy (Hedera helix). In this work, the results for only three of those plants will be presented, namely: oleander, fig tree and laurel. The following parameters will be presented: mass-loss rate, vertical profile of temperature, heat flux and flame dimensions.
This study has two main objectives: 1) to provide data that allows fire behavior modeling in the proximity of dwelling houses; and 2) the determination of the acceptable safety distance that species must be from buildings to prevent their fire. Some of the tests performed showed that the presence of some species in the proximity of buildings (not attached) can be beneficial due to their low flammability and because they can constitute an obstacle to the passage of firebrands, which can ignite the construction.
Reference proposal:
Almeida, M.; Modarres, M.; Muñoz, J. A.; Ribeiro, L. M. (2022). Flammability characteristics of typical garden species. In “Advances in Forest Fire research 2022. Pp 602-609.
It is a well-observed phenomenon in developed societies that, in order to return to nature, a part of the society seeks to settle near forests or in the forest creating wildland – urban interface (WUI) areas. It has special features and generates significant risk of fire on the experts trying to find responses. In the present study, the authors intend to explore the theoretical foundations of the application of the sprinkler system in forests protecting the built environment from fires. Understanding and finding basic rules for the effective sprinkler system application can contribute to reduce the impacts caused by fire. As research methods, the authors based their study mostly on geometric calculation and the physics of evaporation, moreover the basic mathematical formulas as well as logical conclusions were also used. Authors found that the geometry of circle overlapping generates problems regarding the effectiveness of sprinkler systems. 50% overlapping in the longitudinal axis seems to be an acceptable solution. In this case the overlapping rate is 78% per circle with 1.6 kg.m-2 water coverage levels and 22% of the circles have 0.8 kg.m-2 water coverage level. As another solution, a sequentially used system seems like a good solution for replacing the evaporated water, where 75% of the coverage level is accepted as the lowest threshold of the effective rate.
Reference proposal:
Restas, Á.; Almeida, M.; Lotfi, S.; Bodnár, L.; Viegas, D. X. (2022). Basic rules for developing fire sprinkler system in the forest. In “Advances in Forest Fire research 2022”. ISBN: 978-989-26-2297-2. Pp 539-543.
Realistic modeling of the vegetation fires based on reliable data from laboratory experiments is a key factor in the prediction of the fire dynamics behavior and its spread rate in wildlands. A robust understanding of the fire behavior in different species can provide a pragmatic insight to take precautionary steps to mitigate the fire risks in Wildland-urban interfaces. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling of wildland fires offers a considerably high load of information needed for engineers and policymakers. This paper addresses the numerical modeling of the Ivy (Hedera helix) and grapevine (Vitis) plants using the fire dynamics simulation for the fire behavior analysis. Other species which authors have conducted experiments are Acacia, Apple tree, Arizona cypress, Bay laurel (Laurus nobilis), Blueberry tree (Prunus Spinosa), Cherry Tree, Fig tree, Gum rockrose (Cistus ladanifer), Hydrangea, Kiwi tree, Leyland cypress, Lindens (Tilia), Loquat (Eriobotrya japonica), Nerium oleander, Olive tree, Pacific madrone (Arbutus menziesii), Rhus typhina (Anacardiaceae), The Holly (Ilex Aquifolium), Thuja occidentalis (white cedar), and Wild Blackberry (Rubus Ulmifolius) shrub, in alphabetical order. The corresponding mathematical modelings of these experiments are being carried out by the authors. The current numerical study was performed using the NIST open-source FDS code, developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology with specific emphasis on the heat release rate from fires in different types of indigenous plants common in the Mediterranean climate, especially in Portugal. The validations of the numerical results are realized based on the observations from the experiments conducted at the Laboratório de Estudos Sobre Incêndios Florestais (LEIF) by the authors. The large-eddy simulation (LES) is used in these sets of simulations to close the turbulence equations in the low-Mach regime. The 2nd order accurate finite difference approximation scheme is used to discretize the governing equations on uniformly spaced three-dimensional staggered grids. The flow obstructions are treated using the simple immersed boundary method. Comparing the results of the FDS with those from the practical experiments, it is concluded that mathematical modeling of the vegetation fires can provide reasonably accurate results based on the fuel’s physical and chemical characteristics along with operating boundary conditions.
Reference proposal:
Modarres, M.; Almeida, M.; (2022). Application of the Computational Fluid Dynamics in Forest Fires Investigations for Mitigation of the Wildland-Urban Interface Fires’ Risks. In “Advances in Forest Fire research 2022”. ISBN: 978-989-26-2297-2. Pp 533-538.
This publication results from the “III Debate – Forests and Legislation: New Directions with the National Plan for Integrated Management of Wildfires and the Landscape Transformation Programme” that took place on 11 December 2020.
The third debate, which exceptionally took place in online format, aimed to analyse the new directions initiated with the National Plan for Integrated Management of Wildfires and the Landscape Transformation Programme, which established a basic framework for future legislative and regulatory changes.
“This book was produced within the scope of the activities of the Research Area “Risk, Transparency and Litigiousness”, integrated in the project “Social Challenges, Uncertainty and Law: Plurality | Vulnerability | Undecidability” of the Law Institute of the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra (UIDB/04643/2020)”
The number, dimensions, and initial velocity of the firebrands released from burning Quercus suber, Eucalyptus globulus, Quercus robur, and Pinus pinaster trees were analysed in laboratory experiments using a particle image velocimetry system. Additionally, the flame height, tree mass decay, vertical flow velocity, and temperature at the top of the trees were measured during the experiments. The relationship between the various parameters was analysed and a good connection was found. The specimens burnt were mostly young trees, so large particles (e.g., pine cones, thick trunk barks, branches) were not included in this study as they were not present. Actually, the firebrands produced in the laboratory tests, mainly burning leaves, had a cross-sectional area of < 1,600 mm2, having the potential to cause short distance spotting (up to tens of meters).
Quercus trees are often considered to have a lower fire risk than eucalyptus or pine trees. However, in this study, Quercus suber and Quercus robur were the species that produced more firebrands, both in terms of number and total volume. The tests with Quercus suber were the only ones using specimens from an adult tree, confirming the great importance of the age of trees in the propensity to release firebrands. The results obtained with Quercus robur confirmed the high tendency of this species to originate spot fires at a short distance. Thus, these results are of great relevance to afforestation plans and to evaluating the risk of the presence of these species in wildland–urban interface areas.
The main developments of the House Refuge Project obtained until April 2021 were presented at the 2nd Workshop – Projects of Scientific Research and Technological Development within the scope of Forest Fire Prevention and Fire Fighting.
This presentation occurred on April 30th, as reported here.
This event resulted in a book of abstracts that can be accessed here. The summary of the presentation of the House Refuge Project can be found on page 14.
On 17 June 2017, one of the most dramatic and destructive wildfires in Portugal’s History started, formed by a complex of at least five wildfires that merged together burning more than 45,000 hectares. In its aftermath, 66 persons lost their lives, most of them trying to run away from the fire, more than 250 were injured, and over 1000 structures (including 263 residential homes) were damaged or destroyed, with direct losses estimated at around 200 million euros. Shortly after the fire was extinguished, and as part of a larger analysis, the authors performed exhaustive field work to assess the fire impact on all manmade structures in the area of the Pedrógão Grande fire. A specific geodatabase was built, accounting for an extensive set of parameters aimed at characterizing: (i) The structure, (ii) the surroundings of the structure, and (iii) the arrival and impact of the fire. A total of 1043 structures were considered for the analysis, mostly support structures, like sheds or storage (38.6%), but also around 25% of dwellings (13.3% primary and 11.9% secondary). Regarding the ignitions, more than 60% of the structures were ignited due to the deposition of firebrands in different weak points. In addition, more than 60% of these ignitions occurred on the roofs, mainly because of the vulnerability associated with the structures and materials supporting them. Despite these results, and from what we observed on the structures that were not destroyed, we still consider that for the Portuguese reality houses are a good refuge, providing that they and their surroundings are managed and kept in good conditions.
This publication results from the “II Debate – Forest and Legislation: Municipal Plans for the Defence of Forests against Fire” that took place on December 6th, 2019, at the Municipal Auditorium of Praça da Notabilidade, in Castanheira de Pera (Portugal).
“This book was carried out within the activities of the Research Area “Risk, Transparency and Litigiousness”, integrated in the project “Social Challenges, Uncertainty and Law: Plurality | Vulnerability | Indecidability” of the Legal Institute of the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra (uid/dir/04643/2019).”
Todos los años, en todo el mundo, grandes incendios forestales devastan grandes áreas de bosques y crean múltiples impactos socioeconómicos, especialmente en regiones propensas a incendios. En países como Portugal, España, Francia, Italia o Grecia, cada año el área quemada y el número de igniciones son aproximadamente entre 24k ha a 164k ha y 1.5k ha a 18k has, respectivamente. En Portugal, el problema de los incendios forestales en las últimas décadas ha ido aumentando, con graves impactos en la sociedad. Los incendios forestales más grandes ocurridos en Portugal, en los últimos años además de las víctimas mortales que producirán, causaron la destrucción de varias construcciones (por ejemplo, casas e instalaciones industriales, etc.). Los incendios forestales de junio y octubre de 2017 destruyeron más de 500 edificios en las regiones del norte y centro de Portugal. La mayoría de esos edificios destruidos podrían haberse salvado si las construcciones tuvieran un diseño adecuado y si se hubiera realizado la gestión del combustible forestal en los alrededores de las construcciones. En el 90% de las construcciones dañadas, el encendido aumentó debido a las manchas, y las brasas se depositaron en elementos vulnerables (por ejemplo, techos, ventanas y otras partes de aberturas) y en el combustible forestal cerca de las construcciones. Este trabajo pretende explorar diferentes patrones de gestión de combustible en interfaz urbano forestal (Wildland Urban Interface (WUI)), con el objetivo de maximizar la relación costo / eficiencia, así como su eficiencia.
Presentamos una metodología novedosa con respecto al manejo de combustible alrededor de construcciones aisladas en áreas forestales y rurales. La atención se centra en la historia del incendio forestal y las características topográficas en torno a la ubicación de las construcciones que necesitan protección.
Con esta metodología se espera que aumente la seguridad de las construcciones y disminuya el costo de la gestión de los combustibles cercanos.
Para apoyar esta metodología, se llevó a cabo una serie de estudios experimentales en el Laboratorio de Investigación de Incendios Forestales de la Universidad de Coimbra en Lousã (Portugal) en una tabla de combustión específica, llamada tabla diedro.
Short coverage video
Full coverage video
[subtitled in english]
Video summarising some of the best practices for managing the risk of fire near buildings.
Promotional video of the House Refuge Project which aims to establish best practices for reducing the exposure and vulnerability of isolated buildings to wildfires.
Script: Almeida, Miguel; Mestria
Image of a laboratory experiment for the analysis of fire exposure of a house located at the top of a slope.
Field and laboratory experiments to analyze the protection effectiveness of houses using water sprinkler systems.
Videos of activities related to the House Refuge project (PCIF/AGT/0109/2018).
Project Reference: PCIF/AGT/0109/2018
“Scientific Research and Technological Development Projects in the Field of Wildfire Prevention and Response – 2018”
Project started on January 15, 2020 | End of the project on January 14, 2023
