By Kevin Spear
Orlando Sentinel (Florida)
Copyright 2007 Sentinel Communications Co.

ORLANDO, Fla. — How do you fight a rampaging wildfire?

Foot soldiers, torches, bulldozers and flying water tankers fight the battle. But the brains coping with the flames are Florida's fire-behavior analysts.

Faced with more than 200 fires and severe smoke choking the state, these specialists have been trying to outsmart fire by figuring out its appetites, motivations and tantrums.

In a way, it's fire psychology. And it's high-tech.

Increasingly across the nation, fire experts are using a powerful computer program to figure out where a fire will be in an hour or even a few days.

In doing so, firefighters get an estimate of forward speed and flame height -- higher flames require wider firebreaks.

"It gives you an idea of how much time you have to cut your" firebreaks, said John Koehler, manager of the Division of Forestry Orlando district.

On Thursday, the strategists were gaining advantage.

Lighter wind and more humid air across much of Florida appeared to give firefighters a break in battling the blazes that now rank among the worst for wildfires in state history.

With winds from Subtropical Depression Andrea off Florida's east coast fading and some showers falling in Central Florida, only a few new fires cropped up. So far, 236,000 acres have been charred.

There have been no deaths and relatively few homes destroyed, in part because of fire-behavior analysis.

One of Florida's more intimidating blazes during the past week was the 6,100-acre Airport Road Fire in Flagler County. A subdivision may have been spared when firefighters analyzed the fire's potential actions.

The massive blaze had clawed its way to a "trigger point" -- flames within two hours' reach of the Rima Ridge subdivision.

"There was too great a potential it would advance" to homes, said John Kern, a fire-behavior analyst and field supervisor with the Florida Division of Forestry.

On Sunday morning, he and other firefighters ordered repeated water bombings by flying tankers to slow the blaze. After that, bulldozers cut firebreak after firebreak.

Flames were cut off, and by Thursday, the fire was nearly 60 percent contained and firefighters could begin other assignments elsewhere in the state.

The art of fire-behavior analysis has been practiced for decades, with firefighters originally sketching calculations in their minds or notebooks.

For smaller fires, rangers still can use their experience and gut instincts to snuff out flames. But it's another matter for fires that sweep across thousands of acres.

"You kind of lose your perspective, and it's hard to know how far out to put your fire lines," Koehler said.

The program takes into account wind, temperature, humidity, terrain and the fuel feeding fires, which in Florida varies from wire grass and palmetto shrubs to pine forests and hulks of dead trees toppled by hurricanes in 2004 and 2005.

Jim Brenner, lead fire-behavior analyst for the state Division of Forestry, said the program is based on an enormously complicated formula.

"You put the equation on the wall and people will go cross-eyed," Brenner said.

But for all its sophistication, fire-behavior analysts -- there are fewer than a dozen in Florida -- avoid relying on it solely.

"A lot of art and experience is involved," Brenner said.

The analysts expect to remain busy through this summer.

Deborah Hanley, the Division of Forestry's meteorologist in Tallahassee, said forecasts are calling for normal rains in coming months. But Florida is so parched from drought that began last year that normal rain might not be enough.

"We have to just hold on for the next month or two," Hanley said.

For the next several days, firefighters hope to beat back more flames. In Lake County, Assistant Fire Chief Jack Fillman said Thursday that the 2,500-acre fire near the Wekiva River should be totally contained before sunrise today.

Polk County firefighters were extending firebreaks around two wildfires near Interstate 4.