Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State University, 2005. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2007. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves - ). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Orientador: João Andrade de Carvalho Junior / Coorientadora: Maria Angélica Martins Costa / Banca: Luiz Fernando Costa Nascimento / Banca: Silvio Jorge Coelho Simões / Banca: Turíbio Gomes Soares Neto / Banca: Cristiane Aparecida Martins / Resumo: Apesar das novas tecnologias de gerenciamento e combate aos incêndios, o fogo em florestas ainda ocorre em grande escala, causando danos ao meio ambiente e à sociedade. Os danos causados pelo fogo são dependentes de fatores como combustível, clima e topografia do terreno. Para minimização e controle dos efeitos causados pelo fogo é importante o estudo de tais fatores. Assim, o objetivo deste trabalho foi analisar a condição que potencializa a propagação do fogo e a emissão de poluentes gasosos. O estudo da condição que potencializa o fogo e suas emissões foi realizado para biomassas de florestas plantadas. Os principais fatores, que afetam o fogo e suas emissões, foram avaliados através de experimentos de laboratório. Os fatores de controle avaliados foram: espécie, percentual de liteira, carga de combustível, irradiância solar, umidade relativa, velocidade do vento e inclinação do terreno. Estes experimentos foram planejados e analisados utilizando a matriz L18 da metodologia de Taguchi. O dispositivo de queima foi adaptado, para que o estudo pudesse ser realizado. As emissões também foram quantificadas para floresta nativa (biomassa da Amazônia), com experimentos conduzidos em campo e em laboratório. Para os níveis dos fatores estabelecidos, em laboratório, a condição encontrada que potencializou a propagação do fogo e a emissão de poluentes gasosos foi a queima de Eucalyptus sp., com aproximadamente 30 % de liteira, carga de 2,5 kg de combustível, nível mínimo de umidade ... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Despite the new technologies of management and fire fighting, fire in forests still occurs on a large scale, causing damage to the environment and society. The damages caused by the fire are dependent on factors such as fuel, weather, and topography of the land. To minimize and control the effects caused by fire is important the study of such factors. Thus, the objective of this work was to analyze the condition that enhances the spread of fire and the emission of gaseous pollutants. The study of the condition that enhances the fire and their emissions was conducted for biomasses of planted forests. The main factors, which affect the fire, were evaluated through laboratory experiments. The control factors evaluated were: specie, percentage of litter, fuel load, irradiance, relative humidity, wind speed and inclination. These experiments were designed and analyzed using the matrix L18 of Taguchi methodology. The burning device was adapted, so that the study could be performed. The emissions were also quantified to native forest (Amazon biomass), with experiments conducted in the field and in the laboratory. For the levels of the established factors, the condition found that enhanced the spread of fire and the emission of gaseous pollutants was: Eucalyptus sp. burning, with approximately 30% litter, 2.5 kg of fuel load, minimum relative humidity (40%), wind velocity of 3.5 m/s and inclination of 30°. The maximum irradiance (1kW/m2 ) potentiated the gaseous emissions, whose emission factor values were 1,495 ± 62 g/kg for CO2, 71.52 ± 4.33 g/kg for CO, 1.96 ± 0.78 g/kg for NO and 14.75 ± 3.55 g/kg for UHC. Experiments conducted with irradiance at level 1 enhanced the spread of fire. When the results of the Amazon biomass burning were compared, field burning presented higher emissions per hectare, for partially oxidized compounds / Doutor

Este estudo tem por objetivo principal a análise da conduta das queimadas, prática agropecuária ainda muito utilizada em todo o Brasil. A utilização do fogo, embora muito contestada no meio científico por entidades ambientalistas e pela sociedade em geral, constitui uma realidade comum em diversos Estados brasileiros. No Sul, mais precisamente em Santa Catarina e Rio Grande do Sul, esta atividade vem sendo amplamente difundida, principalmente em razão da topografia acidentada e existência de muitas rochas, que dificultam o manejo do pasto seco acumulado durante o final do inverno. Os motivos para a utilização da queima como estratégia de manejo estariam relacionados com a eliminação do material “seco” pelo frio do inverno, cujo excesso, segundo os produtores, prejudicaria a rebrotação na primavera, pois os animais não consomem o pasto seco envelhecido. Outras questões citadas estariam relacionadas ao grau de infestação de espécies indesejáveis em áreas queimadas e não queimadas, bem como a velocidade e qualidade da rebrotação das espécies forrageiras após a queima. Assim, diante de tal quadro, a finalidade deste é discutir e analisar os principais efeitos das queimadas, considerando-se as vantagens, desvantagens e, principalmente, os prejuízos causados pelo uso contínuo e freqüente do fogo como instrumento de manejo e limpeza. Concomitantemente, visa abordar a questão da proteção ambiental frente a tal prática, analisando os danos causados ao meio ambiente e à saúde humana, sob á ótica legal, especialmente o disposto pela Constituição Federal e legislação infraconstitucional, que têm por objetivos precípuos a proteção integral ao meio ambiente, como bem jurídico de uso comum de todos, contra todo e qualquer dano que lhe possa ser causado. / Submitted by Marcelo Teixeira (mvteixeira@ucs.br) on 2014-05-19T14:02:24Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Susane Fabricia Boeira.pdf: 596675 bytes, checksum: 2df372d9ee2a3f63faabf36bd593433b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-05-19T14:02:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Susane Fabricia Boeira.pdf: 596675 bytes, checksum: 2df372d9ee2a3f63faabf36bd593433b (MD5) / This study has as main objective to analyze the behavior of fires, agricultural practice still widely used in Brazil. The use of fire, though very contested within the scientific community by environmental groups and society in general, is a common reality in several Brazilian states. In the South, specifically in Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul, this activity has been widespread, mainly due to the steep topography and the existence of many rocks, which make the management of the pasture accumulated during the late winter very difficult. The reasons for the use of burning as a management strategy would be related to eliminate the excess of "dry" material created by the cold of winter, according to the producers, it would damage the regrowth in the spring, because the animals do not consume the old dry grass. Other issues raised were related to the degree of infestation of undesirable species in burned and unburned areas, as well as speed and quality of forage regrowth after burning. Therefore, faced with this situation, the purpose of this study is discuss and analyze the main effects of the burnings, considering the advantages, disadvantages, and especially the damage caused by frequent and continuous use of fire as a management tool and cleaning. At the same time, it aims to address the issue of environmental protection according to this practice, examining the damage caused to the environment and human health, under the legal approach, especially the provisions of the Constitution and constitutional legislation, which are the prime objectives for the full protection environment, such as legal and common use of all, against any and all damages which may be caused.

Este estudo tem por objetivo principal a análise da conduta das queimadas, prática agropecuária ainda muito utilizada em todo o Brasil. A utilização do fogo, embora muito contestada no meio científico por entidades ambientalistas e pela sociedade em geral, constitui uma realidade comum em diversos Estados brasileiros. No Sul, mais precisamente em Santa Catarina e Rio Grande do Sul, esta atividade vem sendo amplamente difundida, principalmente em razão da topografia acidentada e existência de muitas rochas, que dificultam o manejo do pasto seco acumulado durante o final do inverno. Os motivos para a utilização da queima como estratégia de manejo estariam relacionados com a eliminação do material “seco” pelo frio do inverno, cujo excesso, segundo os produtores, prejudicaria a rebrotação na primavera, pois os animais não consomem o pasto seco envelhecido. Outras questões citadas estariam relacionadas ao grau de infestação de espécies indesejáveis em áreas queimadas e não queimadas, bem como a velocidade e qualidade da rebrotação das espécies forrageiras após a queima. Assim, diante de tal quadro, a finalidade deste é discutir e analisar os principais efeitos das queimadas, considerando-se as vantagens, desvantagens e, principalmente, os prejuízos causados pelo uso contínuo e freqüente do fogo como instrumento de manejo e limpeza. Concomitantemente, visa abordar a questão da proteção ambiental frente a tal prática, analisando os danos causados ao meio ambiente e à saúde humana, sob á ótica legal, especialmente o disposto pela Constituição Federal e legislação infraconstitucional, que têm por objetivos precípuos a proteção integral ao meio ambiente, como bem jurídico de uso comum de todos, contra todo e qualquer dano que lhe possa ser causado. / This study has as main objective to analyze the behavior of fires, agricultural practice still widely used in Brazil. The use of fire, though very contested within the scientific community by environmental groups and society in general, is a common reality in several Brazilian states. In the South, specifically in Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul, this activity has been widespread, mainly due to the steep topography and the existence of many rocks, which make the management of the pasture accumulated during the late winter very difficult. The reasons for the use of burning as a management strategy would be related to eliminate the excess of "dry" material created by the cold of winter, according to the producers, it would damage the regrowth in the spring, because the animals do not consume the old dry grass. Other issues raised were related to the degree of infestation of undesirable species in burned and unburned areas, as well as speed and quality of forage regrowth after burning. Therefore, faced with this situation, the purpose of this study is discuss and analyze the main effects of the burnings, considering the advantages, disadvantages, and especially the damage caused by frequent and continuous use of fire as a management tool and cleaning. At the same time, it aims to address the issue of environmental protection according to this practice, examining the damage caused to the environment and human health, under the legal approach, especially the provisions of the Constitution and constitutional legislation, which are the prime objectives for the full protection environment, such as legal and common use of all, against any and all damages which may be caused.

Background : The recorded history of veld burning in the Kruger National Park (KNP) started with the appointment of Colonel James Stevenson-Hamilton as warden of the Park (then the Sabie Game Reserve) in July 1912 and can be divided into five periods: From 1912 to 1926, a haphazard, and indecisive burning policy was practiced, mainly due to the perception that fire was unfavourable for the environment and because the means to combat veld fires were very meagre. From 1926 to 1948, in which period it was realized that fire was not only unavoidable over a large area such as the KNP, but also actually desirable, necessary and beneficial when applied with circumspection. During this period the capability to successfully introduce and apply a definite fire policy did not exist. From 1948 to 1956, prescribed burning was not practiced, but a network of graded firebreaks was being established (to create burning blocks), and wild fires were actively combated. From 1957 to 1993, during which period a definite prescribed burning policy was practiced, amended several times, but basically consisting of a triennial rotational system where blocks were burned by management. All fires of non-management ignition sources were combated. From 1993 to the present, when a policy of allowing lightning-ignited fires to burn freely was introduced, and fires of human origin were suppressed. The shift away from a rigid prescribed burning programme was because of the concern that the dominance of grass species characteristic of over utilised veld was a result of too frequent burning (Potgieter, 2001). Lightning fires probably played just as an important role in shaping African savanna in pre-industrial times as anthropogenic fires caused by preindustrial man. The role of post-industrial man as far as its influence on the creation of savanna is concerned is probably negligible, but significantly important in the role of maintaining savanna, although probably not more so than that of lighting fires. Fires caused by postindustrial man becomes suspect as far as the creation of savanna is concerned, because instead of the mere burning of the veld for the pure reasons of survival as practiced by pre-industrial man, a measure of commercialism crept in (Potgieter, 2001). Fire management of the KNP in pre-industrial times can be regarded in the same light as that of post-industrial times. Although the motive for burning the veld in the KNP was beyond reproach, the underlying reasoning was not. Managers’ thinking was geared towards preventing so called “devastating fires”, laying to waste large areas of the Park, not realising that this was in actual fact nature going about its business in this ecosystem. They therefore devised a system of firebreak roads, which was gradually extended to the extent that we now have more than 4000 km roads that must be maintained. This was all in the cause of preventing or managing lightning and arson fires. Given the above, a revision of the veld fire policy was extremely necessary. The mission statement hammered out during the revising process in 1993 underscored and supported the proposal put forward in 1992, that lightning fires should be recognised as a legitimate and completely natural phenomenon in the Lowveld ecosystem. This had to be weighed against the prevailing practice of combating all fires caused by lightning and non-management anthropogenic sources of fire. The essence of this policy would therefore be to allow lightning-fires to burn to their full extent i.e. if vegetation conditions (available biomass) are such that large areas will burn, then such burns will be permitted to proceed to their full extent with the provision that no more than 50% of the management unit will be allowed to burn out (no matter what the ignition source) in a specific fire season (Potgieter, 2001).

The theme of the thesis is psychological offender profiling and the possibilities that it offers in the investigation of arson cases. First it introduces profiling as an investigation method, including its history, the sources on which it is based, what kind of information it contains and how it is created. Next it follows up the problematic issue of fires, their investigation and the classification of intentionally set fires. It also introduces some particular arsonist offender subtypes. Then it pursues the arson profiling and introduces the main profiling approaches. In the end, the author applies the acquired findings to analyze two arson cases according to the particular profiling approaches and then compares the provided leads to a possible offender.

Wildfires play a significant role in many different elements of Mediterranean forest ecosystems. In recent years, prescribed fires have started being used more often as a fuel reduction tool, and also as silvicultural treatment to help the regeneration and health improvement of stands. Apart from the fact that fire may alter microsite conditions, very little is known about the impact of prescribed burning on natural regeneration or plant species renewal in Mediterranean pine forests. Likewise, knowledge about the influence of seedling predators on post-fire regeneration is still scarce. In this study, we aimed to compare the effects of seedling predation on recruitment in earlier stages after prescribed burnings in three pine stands in Central Spain: a pure stand of Pinus nigra; a mixed stand of Pinus halepensis and Pinus pinaster and a mixed stand P. nigra with P. pinaster. In situ we superficially sowed seeds from two different species. In the sowing experiment, we tested two different seed provenances (drier and more humid spanish regions) for each species. In all, 60 plots (30 burned, 30 unburned) per site, with 10 seeding units per plot and more than 20,000 seeds, were used in the whole study. Seedling predation was evaluated by replicating the seeding units inside and outside a wire cage as protection for rodents and birds. Our results showed that prescribed fires alter initial seedling predation intensity: predation was significantly higher in the seedlings grown in the plots affected by prescribed fire. The individuals sown before the fire passed showed slightly more predation than those sown after fire passage. Provenances did not appear as an important predation drive. Understanding the role of the predation associated with these treatments can help improve Mediterranean pine forest management.

To proffer a sustainable solution to ecological degradation in rangeland ecosystems as a consequence of fire, grazing and browsing, an understanding of rangeland ecological processes is vital. Due to the complexity of ecological processes and their interrelationships, it is usually difficult or expensive to directly measure status of ecological processes. Therefore, biological and physical characteristics are often used to indicate the functionality of ecological processes and site integrity. Long-term effects of fire, grazing and browsing on characteristics of the vegetation and organic matter and their subsequent effects on selected rangelands ecosystem ecological processes was conducted at Honeydale section of the University of Fort Hare farm in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa and Matopos Research Station in Zimbabwe. In this study, attributes of biotic community integrity (species richness, composition and diversity), soil stability (basal cover, standing dead grass biomass, tuft to tuft distance, tufts diameter, canopy distance and stem to stem distance), productivity and plant vigour (grass yield, total canopy volume, plant height, canopy height, canopy diameter, main stem diameter, sprouts diameter and number of sprouts) and hydrologic function and nutrient cycling (grass litter biomass, soil organic carbon and microbial biomass carbon) were used to estimate long-term effects of burning, grazing and browsing by goats on the functionality of ecological processes in the rangeland ecosystem. Burning did not have differential effect on grass species richness (P>0.05), woody species diversity as well as compositional percentage for D.eriatha, C.plurinodis, S.fimbriatus, A.karro and E.rigida. Burning increased decreasers and increaser II species proportions and reduced (P ≤ 0.05) grass yield, total canopy volume, tree height, canopy height main stem diameter and sprouts diameter. Long-term burning, grazing, and goats browsing had differential effects on site stability. The effects on basal cover, tuft to tuft distance, tufts diameter, canopy distance and basal distance as a consequence of long-term burning, grazing, and goats browsing were not significantly different, whereas the effects on standing dead grass biomass as a result of long-term burning frequencies were significantly different. Long-term effects of burning followed by ten-year period of fire exclusion had significantly different effects on tuft-tuft distance but did not have statistically different effects on tufts diameter, canopy distance and basal distance. Long-term burning grazing and browsing had significantly different effects on attributes of hydrologic functions and nutrient cycling in the rangeland ecosystem (grass litter biomass, SOC and BMC). Long-term effects of burning followed by ten-year period of fire exclusion had significantly different effects on grass litter biomass, and SOC. Through their effect on vegetation and organic matter characteristics, burning, grazing and browsing could influence functionality of selected rangeland ecological processes such as biological community integrity, productivity and plant vigour, site stability, hydrologic function and nutrient cycling.

In a society increasingly more influenced by technology and electricity, electrical and computer cables will play a more vital role in humans’ everyday life. With an increasing number of cables being introduced into society, the risk of fires caused by or involving cables will increase and become a more common danger to property and human lives. The fire properties of cables are tested according to Standard EN 50399 where vertically mounted cables are exposed to a burner for 20 minutes. The present work consists of running simulations imitating the conditions of Standard EN 50399 for testing cables using a Computational Fluid Dynamics program called Fire Dynamic Simulator (FDS). The general idea was to test the material in small-scale and running simulations to verify how well simulated values corresponded to values from actual testing, providing a potential less costly method of predicting the correct Euroclass in the development phase of new cables. During a visit at RISE in Borås, material for testing and a script previously used for testing a module of EN 50399 in FDS were obtained from previous work. The FDS script was later altered by adjusting the meshes inside the model in an effort to reduce simulation time. This was done by prioritizing smaller grid cells in high activity areas and using large grid cells in low activity areas. To verify the function of the model on the current version 7.5.0 of the FDS software, simulations were run empty without modelling the cables. To validate the FDS-model, temperatures were measured at four heights using a resemble of plate thermometers and the results were compared to older temperature measurements from an actual experiment using plate thermometers in the apparatus used at RISE when testing in the EN 50399 apparatus. To obtain the material data necessary for FDS, the material used as cable sheeting (surrounding the conductive metal core) molded into thin square plates were tested using a cone calorimeter at Luleå University of Technology. Two tests were conducted at irradiance levels of 50 and 25 kW/m2 where heat release rate was measured. Thenceforth followed 14 repeated tests at varying irradiance levels with the sole purpose of measuring time to ignition. In total 16 experiments were conducted, of which ten resulted in ignition, four of which did not ignite after exposure for 20 minutes and two which were interrupted due to swelling of the sample. After testing in the cone calorimeter, a critical irradiance level and ignition temperature of the material were verified using a theory presented by Janssens (1991). Two ramps – a controlled way of determining the materials heat release over time in FDS – were created based on the two tests at different irradiance levels. Using these new parameters simulations recreating the scenario for testing according to EN 50399 were run using FDS. Three simulations were run, testing different ramps and different implementations of the cables. The results proved it difficult to achieve the same heat release rate for cables simulated using FDS as heat released rate measured at experiments. With the simulations results at hand, in combination with uncertainties regarding material data it became clear the material had proven more difficult then anticipated. A possible reason for the big gap in heat release rate between simulations and experimental values could be considered to be the high ignition temperature given as material input for the cable in FDS.