Publication Date
11-10-2021
Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Frontiers in Forests and Global Change
Volume
4
DOI
10.3389/ffgc.2021.728726
Abstract
The objective of this study was to assess feasibility of integrating a coupled fire-atmosphere model within an air-quality forecast system to create a multiscale air-quality modeling framework designed to simulate wildfire smoke. For this study, a coupled fire-atmosphere model, WRF-SFIRE, was integrated, one-way, with the AIRPACT air-quality modeling system. WRF-SFIRE resolved local meteorology, fire growth, the fire plume rise, and smoke dispersion, and provided AIRPACT with fire inputs. The WRF-SFIRE-forecasted fire area and the explicitly resolved vertical smoke distribution replaced the parameterized BlueSky fire inputs used by AIRPACT. The WRF-SFIRE/AIRPACT integrated framework was successfully tested for two separate wildfire events (2015 Cougar Creek and 2016 Pioneer fires). The execution time for the WRF-SFIRE simulations was <3 h for a 48 h-long forecast, suggesting that integrating coupled fire-atmosphere simulations within the daily AIRPACT cycle is feasible. While the WRF-SFIRE forecasts realistically captured fire growth 2 days in advance, the largest improvements in the air quality simulations were associated with the wildfire plume rise. WRF-SFIRE-estimated plume tops were within 300-m of satellite-estimated plume top heights for both case studies analyzed in this study. Air quality simulations produced by AIRPACT with and without WRF-SFIRE inputs were evaluated with nearby PM2.5 measurement sites to assess the performance of our multiscale smoke modeling framework. The largest improvements when coupling WRF-SFIRE with AIRPACT were observed for the Cougar Creek Fire where model errors were reduced by ∼50%. For the second case (Pioneer fire), the most notable change with WRF-SFIRE coupling was that the probability of detection increased from 16 to 52%.
Funding Number
L15AC00170
Funding Sponsor
National Science Foundation
Keywords
air quality modeling, AIRPACT, Cougar Creek Fire, coupled fire-atmosphere model, fire modeling, smoke modeling, WRF-SFIRE
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Department
Meteorology and Climate Science
Recommended Citation
Adam K. Kochanski, Farren Herron-Thorpe, Derek V. Mallia, Jan Mandel, and Joseph K. Vaughan. "Integration of a Coupled Fire-Atmosphere Model Into a Regional Air Quality Forecasting System for Wildfire Events" Frontiers in Forests and Global Change (2021). https://doi.org/10.3389/ffgc.2021.728726
