The 2013 Rim Fire: Implications for Predicting Extreme Fire Spread, Pyroconvection, and Smoke Emissions

Peterson, David A.; Hyer, E. J.; Campbell, James; Fromm, M.; Hair, Johnathan W.; Butler, C. F.; Fenn, M. A.

doi:10.1175/bams-d-14-00060.1

Cited by 117 publications

(142 citation statements)

References 80 publications

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“…the latent heat released from the condensation of water vapour entrained into the plume from the combustion zone (water is a primary combustion product) and/or from the ambient fresh air (Freitas et al, 2007;Peterson et al, 2015).…”

Section: Physics Of Landscape Fire Plumesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…PyroCb are usually triggered by very large, intensely burning fires occurring in favourable atmospheric conditions for the phenomena. The exact conditions are still a matter of debate; however several studies have demonstrated the influence of fire size (Toon et al, 2007), unstable lower atmosphere , the ambient mid-level moisture (Peterson et al, 2015), and/or the presence of an approaching cold front Dirksen et al, 2009;Luderer et al, 2006;Peterson et al, 2015). For examples of PyroCb see the website http://pyrocb.ssec.wisc.edu, which has been reporting PyroCb events since May 2013.…”

Section: Physics Of Landscape Fire Plumesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A review of approaches to estimate wildfire plume injection height within large-scale atmospheric chemical transport models

et al. 2016

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Abstract. Landscape fires produce smoke containing a very wide variety of chemical species, both gases and aerosols. For larger, more intense fires that produce the greatest amounts of emissions per unit time, the smoke tends initially to be transported vertically or semi-vertically close by the source region, driven by the intense heat and convective energy released by the burning vegetation. The column of hot smoke rapidly entrains cooler ambient air, forming a rising plume within which the fire emissions are transported. The characteristics of this plume, and in particular the height to which it rises before releasing the majority of the smoke burden into the wider atmosphere, are important in terms of how the fire emissions are ultimately transported, since for example winds at different altitudes may be quite different. This difference in atmospheric transport then may also affect the longevity, chemical conversion, and fate of the plumes chemical constituents, with for example very high plume injection heights being associated with extreme long-range atmospheric transport. Here we review how such landscape-scale fire smoke plume injection heights are represented in largerscale atmospheric transport models aiming to represent the impacts of wildfire emissions on component of the Earth system. In particular we detail (i) satellite Earth observation data sets capable of being used to remotely assess wildfire plume height distributions and (ii) the driving characteristics of the causal fires. We also discuss both the physical mechanisms and dynamics taking place in fire plumes and investigate the efficiency and limitations of currently available injection height parameterizations. Finally, we conclude by suggesting some future parameterization developments and ideas on Earth observation data selection that may be relevant to the instigation of enhanced methodologies aimed at injection height representation.

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Section: Physics Of Landscape Fire Plumesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Physics Of Landscape Fire Plumesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A review of approaches to estimate wildfire plume injection height within large-scale atmospheric chemical transport models

et al. 2016

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“…These data include both true color visible images and fireradiative power (FRP). The nominal resolution is 500 m. FRP is derived by differencing fire pixels from adjacent non-fire pixels using infrared radiance (Wooster, 2002) and has been shown to provide high fidelity representation of fire activity during California wildfires (Koltunov et al, 2012;Peterson et al, 2015). FRP data from GOES are also examined.…”

Section: Satellite Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Compared to their lesser counterparts, pyroCbs possess glaciated cloud tops and can thus generate precipitation, downdrafts, and lightning (American Meteorological Society, 2015b). In exceptional cases, pyroCbs have been linked with extreme fire growth (Peterson et al, 2015), devastating firestorms , and even fire-induced tornados (Cunningham and Reeder, 2009;McRae et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental controls on pyrocumulus and pyrocumulonimbus initiation and development

Lareau

Clements

2016

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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Abstract. In this paper we present the first direct observational evidence that the condensation level in pyrocumulus and pyrocumulonimbus clouds can be significantly higher than the ambient lifted condensation level. In addition, we show that the environmental thermodynamic profile, day-today variations in humidity, and ambient wind shear all exert significant influence over the onset and development of pyroconvective clouds. These findings are established using a scanning Doppler lidar and mobile radiosonde system during two large wildfires in northern California, the Bald Fire and the Rocky Fire. The lidar is used to distinguish liquid water from smoke backscatter during the plume rise, and thus provides a direct detection of plume condensations levels. Plume tops are subsequently determined from both the lidar and nearby radar observations. The radiosonde data, obtained adjacent to the fires, contextualize the lidar and radar observations, and enable estimates of the plume ascent, convective available potential energy, and equilibrium level. A noteworthy finding is that in these cases, the convective condensation level, not the lifted condensation level, provides the best estimate of the pyrocumulus initiation height.

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“…Wildfires are prevalent in the western United States in July and August, with transport from these events impacting the eastern United States. This includes the California Rim Fire, one of the largest wildfires in California's history, which occurred during August 2013 (Peterson et al, 2015). Burning events also occur in the Amazonian Basin in South America.…”

Section: Boreal Summer Aerosol Featuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of the Ensemble Navy Aerosol Analysis Prediction System (ENAAPS) and its application of the Data Assimilation Research Testbed (DART) in support of aerosol forecasting

Rubin

Reid²,

Hansen³

et al. 2016

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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Abstract. An ensemble-based forecast and data assimilation system has been developed for use in Navy aerosol forecasting. The system makes use of an ensemble of the Navy Aerosol Analysis Prediction System (ENAAPS) at 1 × 1 • , combined with an ensemble adjustment Kalman filter from NCAR's Data Assimilation Research Testbed (DART). The base ENAAPS-DART system discussed in this work utilizes the Navy Operational Global Analysis Prediction System (NOGAPS) meteorological ensemble to drive offline NAAPS simulations coupled with the DART ensemble Kalman filter architecture to assimilate bias-corrected MODIS aerosol optical thickness (AOT) retrievals. This work outlines the optimization of the 20-member ensemble system, including consideration of meteorology and sourceperturbed ensemble members as well as covariance inflation. Additional tests with 80 meteorological and source members were also performed. An important finding of this work is that an adaptive covariance inflation method, which has not been previously tested for aerosol applications, was found to perform better than a temporally and spatially constant covariance inflation. Problems were identified with the constant inflation in regions with limited observational coverage. The second major finding of this work is that combined meteorology and aerosol source ensembles are superior to either in isolation and that both are necessary to produce a robust system with sufficient spread in the ensemble members as well as realistic correlation fields for spreading observational information. The inclusion of aerosol source ensembles improves correlation fields for large aerosol source regions, such as smoke and dust in Africa, by statistically separating freshly emitted from transported aerosol species. However, the source ensembles have limited efficacy during long-range transport. Conversely, the meteorological ensemble generates sufficient spread at the synoptic scale to enable observational impact through the ensemble data assimilation. The optimized ensemble system was compared to the Navy's current operational aerosol forecasting system, which makes use of NAVDAS-AOD (NRL Atmospheric Variational Data Assimilation System for aerosol optical depth), a 2-D variational data assimilation system. Overall, the two systems had statistically insignificant differences in root-mean-squared error (RMSE), bias, and correlation relative to AERONETobserved AOT. However, the ensemble system is able to better capture sharp gradients in aerosol features compared to the 2DVar system, which has a tendency to smooth out aerosol events. Such skill is not easily observable in bulk metrics. Further, the ENAAPS-DART system will allow for new avenues of model development, such as more efficient lidar and surface station assimilation as well as adaptive sourcePublished by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 3928 J. I. Rubin et al.: Development of the ENAAPS and its application of the DART functions. At this early stage of development, the parity with th...

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The 2013 Rim Fire: Implications for Predicting Extreme Fire Spread, Pyroconvection, and Smoke Emissions

Abstract: One of the largest wildfires in California's history provides a unique opportunity to examine the meteorology driving extreme fire behavior and its impact on smoke plume altitude and downwind transport.

Cited by 117 publications

References 80 publications

A review of approaches to estimate wildfire plume injection height within large-scale atmospheric chemical transport models

A review of approaches to estimate wildfire plume injection height within large-scale atmospheric chemical transport models

Environmental controls on pyrocumulus and pyrocumulonimbus initiation and development

Development of the Ensemble Navy Aerosol Analysis Prediction System (ENAAPS) and its application of the Data Assimilation Research Testbed (DART) in support of aerosol forecasting

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