Mack Lake Fire   [open pdf - 7MB]

"On May 5, 1980 at 1030 EDT, a prescribed fire was ignited in jack pine slash near Mio, Michigan. [...] At 1206, the fire spotted into standing jack pine timber adjacent to the prescribed burn area. [...] In the first 6 hours, the fire took one life, destroyed 44 homes and buildings, and burned 20,000 acres of forest land. [...] Trying to understand the behavior of all large fires with individual case studies is like trying to understand a movie by examining individual frames chosen at random. Each fire is only a single observation of a complex process, and many observations are needed before patterns begin to emerge. Despite the complexity, however, careful examination of even a single fire can yield insights into the underlying physical processes that control large fire behavior."