Measurement Trials and Modeling of Radio Propagation Through Small-Scale Fire Using Pinus pinaster Fuel Bed

This letter presents measurement results and initial physical modeling of the radiowave propagation phenomena in the presence of fire using Pinus pinaster fuel heaps. To this extent, this letter reports on small-scale measurement trials carried out at 700 MHz on Pinus pinaster fuel bed on fire and subsequent validation of simulation results of the propagation phenomena behavior based on the intertwined use of both the fire dynamics simulator and the cold plasma model. Excess attenuation of up to 1.52 dB was observed in measured results, which is thought to be critical considering it is a small-scale fire scenario composed of a 1 x 1 m(2) with 0.6 kg of pine needles

Automated summary

This letter presents measurement results and initial physical modeling of radio wave propagation phenomena in the presence of fire using Pinus pinaster fuel heaps. Small-scale measurement trials at 700 MHz were carried out on a Pinus pinaster fuel bed on fire, and subsequent simulation results of the propagation phenomena behavior were validated using both the fire dynamics simulator and the cold plasma model. Excessive attenuation of up to 1.52 dB was observed in the measured results, which is considered critical considering the small-scale fire scenario with a 1 x 1 m(2) area and 0.6 kg of pine needles.