Abstract
The Fire and Smoke Model Evaluation Experiment (FASMEE) is designed to collect integrated observations from large wildland fires and provide evaluation datasets for new models and operational systems. Wildland fire, smoke dispersion, and atmospheric chemistry models have become more sophisticated, and next-generation operational models will require evaluation datasets that are coordinated and comprehensive for their evaluation and advancement. Integrated measurements are required, including ground-based observations of fuels and fire behavior, estimates of fire-emitted heat and emissions fluxes, and observations of near-source micrometeorology, plume properties, smoke dispersion, and atmospheric chemistry. To address these requirements the FASMEE campaign design includes a study plan to guide the suite of required measurements in forested sites representative of many prescribed burning programs in the southeastern United States and increasingly common high-intensity fires in the western United States. Here we provide an overview of the proposed experiment and recommendations for key measurements. The FASMEE study provides a template for additional large-scale experimental campaigns to advance fire science and operational fire and smoke models.
Highlights
Fire and smoke models are essential tools for wildland fire decision-making and planning.many models that currently drive operational systems are used without adequate validation and evaluation because of the lack of suitable data
The potential to conduct measurements from prescribed crown fires presents a rare opportunity to sample the spectrum of fuel, fire behavior, and plume dynamics in a wildland fire that resembles a stand-replacing wildfire
Operational fire and smoke modeling systems rely on simplified fuel consumption, fire behavior, heat release, and plume models that are based on empirical or statistical relationships developed from laboratory, field, and smokestack observations [70,71]
Summary
Fire and smoke models are essential tools for wildland fire decision-making and planning. Reliable predictions of smoke production and dispersion are fundamentally based on modeling fire–atmosphere interactions, including wildland fire behavior and plume dynamics. Complex physics-based smoke models include, to different approximations, fire and atmosphere dynamics that drive buoyancy-induced plume rise and smoke transport. Utilize simplified fire spread models, and localized smoke models such as Daysmoke [8] approximate the sources of heat and mass that generate the buoyant plume and smoke (Table 1). These models resolve plume dynamics but parametrize combustion-related processes to enable faster than real time simulations of landscape scale (thousands of ha) wildland fires at spatial resolutions of hundreds of meters. Platforms and decision support systems or other applications that house specific models are presented in the “Applications” column
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