U.S. flag An official website of the United States government.
Official websites use .gov

A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS

A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

i

Sensitivity to the Representation of Wind for Wildfire Rate of Spread: Case Studies with the Community Fire Behavior Model



Details

  • Journal Title:
    Fire
  • Personal Author:
  • NOAA Program & Office:
  • Description:
    Accurate wildfire spread modeling critically depends on the representation of wind dynamics, which vary with terrain, land cover characteristics, and height above ground. Many fire spread models are often coupled with coarse atmospheric grids that cannot explicitly resolve the vertical variation of wind near flame heights. Rothermel’s fire spread model, a widely used parameterization, relies on midflame wind speed to calculate the fire rate of spread. In coupled fire atmosphere models such as the Community Fire Behavior Model (CFBM), users are required to specify the midflame height before running a fire spread simulation. This study evaluates the use of logarithmic interpolation wind adjustment factors (WAF) for improving midflame wind speed estimates, which are critical for the Rothermel model. We compare the fixed wind height approach that is currently used in CFBM with WAF-derived winds for unsheltered and sheltered surface fire spread. For the first time in this context, these simulations are validated against satellite and ground-based observations of fire perimeters. The results show that WAF implementation improves fire perimeter predictions for both grass and canopy fires while reducing the overestimation of fire spread. Moreover, this approach solely depends on the fuel bed depth and estimation of canopy density, enhancing operational efficiency by eliminating the need for users to specify a wind height for simulations.
  • Source:
    Fire, 8(4), 135
  • DOI:
  • ISSN:
    2571-6255
  • Format:
    PDF
  • Publisher:
    MDPI AG
  • Document Type:
    Journal Article
  • Funding:
    Grant no. NA22OAR4590514-T1-01
  • License:
  • Rights Information:
    CC BY
  • Compliance:
    Submitted
  • Main Document Checksum:
    urn:sha-512:0542cd8b1bc81b85138a2c26f23698291bf93759115b6dcad21caf984cd7bb36bce8c2b46a394dcf18b4ff3345d769b63b78ed3a21b6c778d3945293c18ed493
  • Download URL:
  • File Type:
    Filetype[PDF - 6.14 MB ]
PREVIOUS
ON THIS PAGE
Details
The NOAA IR serves as an archival repository of NOAA-published products including scientific findings, journal articles, guidelines, recommendations, or other information authored or co-authored by NOAA or funded partners. As a repository, the NOAA IR retains documents in their original published format to ensure public access to scientific information.
BACK TO TOP