Tortosa
General information
- Category
- Wildfire
- Fire classification
- Resilient PyroCu
- Country
- Catalunya
- Year
- 2024
The Tortosa wildfire affected a hillside predominantly covered by scrub with a high availability of fuel (50% dead), which facilitated a rapid and intense spread. The initial capacity of the fire to release energy contributed to the development of pyroconvective phenomena (Overshooting PyroCu), which resulted in a fourfold increase in the rate of fire spread (from 250 m/h at the initial stage to 1000 m/h).
Fire behaviour and surface observations
| Start location lat | 40.823570 deg N |
| Start location lon | 0.593460 deg E |
| Start location name | Tortosa, Catalonia |
| Start hour | 28/05/2024 08:30:00 (UTC) |
| Surface affected | 90 ha |
| Fire behavior | Surface, high intensity |
| Torching head | 60 % |
| Torching flanks | 29 % |
| Flame length mean head | 1 m |
| Flame length max head | 5 m |
| Flame length mean flanks | 0.5 m |
| Flame length max flanks | 3 m |
| Spotting mean | 0 m |
| Spotting max | 0 m |
| Rate of spread mean | 250 m/h |
| Rate of spread max | 1000 m/h |
| Burn ratio mean | 15 ha/h |
| Burn ratio max | 40 ha/h |
Head surface fire behaviour, with tactical fire operation: 28/05/2024, 12:36 (UTC+2)