Pacific Northwest Research Station

In 2011, numerous large wildfires burned across the Southwestern United States. Fueled by historically low fuel moistures, these fires exhibited explosive growth and grew to unprecedented size—the 2011 Wallow Fire is the largest in contemporary Arizona history. The smoke from these fires created a significant public health challenge, blanketing large swaths of Arizona and New Mexico with unhealthy air quality conditions.

Federal, state, tribal, and local government agencies pooled resources to create a coordinated smoke and health effects outlook that was disseminated to the public. Expertise from the PNW Research Station was requested and was a key component of this effort. Station scientists provided a core set of customized advanced smoke modeling results and expert analyses to the group on a daily basis. Their efforts were instrumental in determining the daily smoke outlook.

These reports were linked to the Web site that lists information about all active fires in the Nation (Inciweb) and accessed thousands of times by involved agencies and the public. The reports were redistributed by up to 20 agencies that coordinated their message through daily consultations. The smoke outlooks were also picked up by television stations around the region and were used by the public for such things as rescheduling sporting events to avoid times of peak smoke.

Contact: Sim Larkin, larkin@fs.fed.us, Threat Characterization and Management Program

Smoke and Emission Model Intercomparison Project (SEMIP) is an ongoing community effort to compare and evaluate the growing number of fire smoke and fire emissions models that have been developed. SEMIP is designed to be of use to both the scientific and management communities who need model performance comparisons to be able to better focus new model development and better utilize existing model output

Researchers combined the most commonly used fuel maps and consumption models to calculate the range in fuel consumption the various combinations produce. This provides an estimate of the uncertainty in model-based consumption estimates so that managers can better understand the state of the science and develop a realistic sense of confidence in model results.

The results are presented as part of an interactive Web site that allows users to select a location and then look at maps and tables showing the fuel model and consumption model data for that location. This is the first step in a larger project aimed at providing users with clear information on limitations and uncertainties in the models routinely used for fuel and smoke management.

Learn more: http://www.semip.org/

The Australian federal government and state of Victoria requested the assistance of station scientists in understanding the catastrophic fires that burned in Victoria on February 7, 2009. Specifically, they wanted insight into the growth and behavior of the smoke plume during the various fires. After visiting the fire sites and analyzing data provided by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, the scientists determined that the plume’s structure was strongly influenced by changing air properties with height and time. These changes determined the direction and distance of spot fires, as well as the overall behavior of the fires, in ways that made them more unpredictable. The scientists also provided computer code and documentation that are enabling Australian researchers to examine these types of air-mass changes in their fire weather and fire behavior models.

The Bureau of Meteorology and Victoria Department of Sustainability and Environment are testing new ways to incorporate this information about middle-troposphere conditions in their fire behavior and fire danger warning systems.

Contact: Brian Potter, bpotter@fs.fed.us, Threat Characterization and Management Program