Publication Date

12-29-2025

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Fire

Volume

9

Issue

1

DOI

10.3390/fire9010019

Abstract

Accurate vertical distribution of fire-induced heat fluxes in the atmosphere is critical for realistic coupled fire–atmosphere simulations. In response to concerns raised by Shamsaei et al. (2023) regarding potential energy conservation issues in the WRF-SFIRE heat distribution scheme, this study first conducts a comprehensive theoretical analysis, demonstrating that the original exponential formulation exhibits negligible error under typical domain configurations. Then, it introduces a novel formulation, called the Versatile Energy-Conservative Distribution scheme, that rigorously guarantees energy conservation while providing enhanced flexibility in specifying vertical distribution profiles. The proposed method accommodates multiple profiles, including exponential, Gaussian, and gamma, and enables the independent treatment of surface and canopy heat fluxes, thereby yielding a more flexible representation of fire heat fluxes. Numerical evaluations on both fine and coarse non-uniform meshes confirm that the new formulation maintains perfect energy balance across various configurations and overcomes the limitations observed in other schemes, such as the truncated Gaussian approach. These advancements not only refute previous claims of significant energy misrepresentation but also offer a robust and flexible framework intended to improve the representation of fire–atmosphere interactions in numerical models.

Funding Number

80 NSSC23K1344

Funding Sponsor

National Center for Atmospheric Research

Keywords

coupled atmosphere-fire model, fire model, heat fluxes

Comments

This article is a commentary on a previously published article in the journal, Fire 2023, 6(7), 264, https://doi.org/10.3390/fire6070264

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Department

Meteorology and Climate Science

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