Integration of Geographic Information Systems with a Diagnostic Wind Field Model for Fire Management

Abstract

Abstract The past 10 years have seen an increased interest in diagnostic wind modeling efforts in the fields of air pollution research and wind energy engineering. Applications relating wind to forest fire behavior are also beginning to capitalize on computer-generated outputs from wind models. Most wind model outputs have been considered useful only as intermediate data files loaded into specialized software packages for further processing. Output data are used to generate various output products without being passed into sophisticated mathematical models. With the developed technology of geographic information systems (GIS), new map products can be created. If designed properly, these maps can pass information more efficiently to both the decision maker and the GIS for further analysis. The methods used to create and edit topographic and meteorological databases, display the results of the KRISSY diagnostic wind field model, and perform analyses on the topography and estimated wind field are described. For. Sci. 37(2):560-573.