Los Alamos National Laboratory
James E. Rickman
(505) 665-9203 or (505) 667-7000
[email protected]
Dorn Whitmore, Merritt Island
(407) 861-0667
WHERE THERE'S SMOKE ... THERE'S DATA LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Feb. 18, 1998 -- Researchers from the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory on Thursday plan to observe a controlled burn at a Florida wildlife refuge to gather data that will help make a computer model of wildfire behavior more realistic and beneficial to firefighters and others.
The Los Alamos team will gather data from a planned prescribed burn of marshland at the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge located at NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center.
Los Alamos is operated by the University of California for DOE. "We are pleased that we have the opportunity to enter into a cooperative effort between physical scientists and fire management personnel," said Jim Bossert of Los Alamos' Atmospheric and Climate Sciences Group. "The combined expertise between fire personnel from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Los Alamos scientists will allow us to gather data that are essential for understanding the effects of fire on an ecosystem and for assessing the performance of our Wildfire Prediction System."
Scientists hope the Los Alamos Wildfire Prediction System eventually will accurately and rapidly predict the spread and behavior of wildfires. Researchers plan to have these models ready in the near future so they can be used to help fire professionals more effectively fight fires, train firefighters or plan strategies to prevent catastrophic fire conditions.
Weather conditions drive fire behavior, but fires also drive weather conditions. Existing wildfire models do not take into account the complex interaction between a fire and local weather conditions. Consequently, current models are restricted to a limited range of scenarios.
The Los Alamos Wildfire Prediction System -- which capitalizes on the Laboratory expertise in high-performance supercomputing -- is one of the first to actively integrate fire and weather behaviors.
Fire behavior is driven by local weather conditions such as winds, temperature and moisture. For the Wildfire Prediction System, researchers use the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System -- RAMS -- to predict variable weather patterns. The RAMS model, originally developed at Colorado State University, uses data from all over the country to predict weather parameters. RAMS then translates the information into smaller and smaller geographical areas. Weather predictions from RAMS in the vicinity of a fire are used by a high-resolution model called HIGRAD to accurately simulate weather variables across a fire line. HIGRAD was developed by Los Alamos and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
To study interactions between winds and fires, the researchers have combined the HIGRAD model with BEHAVE, the U.S. Forest Service's fire behavior model. The combined modeling system is the first step in predicting the actual progression and heat release of a wildfire. Los Alamos researchers used the combined system to model several real fires -- the tragic South Canyon fire near Glenwood Springs, Colo., that killed 14 firefighters on July 6, 1994, and the Calabasas fire near Malibu, Calif., on Oct. 22, 1996.
To further study and understand actual fire behavior, Los Alamos scientists are developing FIRETEC, a computer model that incorporates basic physical and chemical properties of fire. By investigating, understanding and modeling the fundamental principles of fire, the researchers can build models that more accurately predict wildfire behavior.
Bossert said the interagency cooperation has been crucial to model development. In early 1997, Los Alamos researchers first approached officials from Kennedy Space Center and Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge -- a 92,000 acre reserve that overlaps portions of the space center -- about the interagency effort to develop the model.
In April 1997, Los Alamos researchers joined personnel from the refuge, Dynamac Corp., NASA, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Forest Service, National Weather Service and others for the first controlled burn. The spread and intensity of that first burn, which seared its way through fields of Florida scrub, was monitored by instruments aboard a Lear jet supplied by NASA's AMES Research Center.
This Thursday's burn will take place in marshland covered predominantly by dense grassy vegetation. The Los Alamos team will use portable stations to monitor weather conditions near the fire. Team members also will use instruments to measure the heat of the blaze and will observe how quickly the fire spreads. In addition, the team will gather information on the smoke plume, fuel characteristics and other variables.
Once combined, the data will help the researchers continue to build a more realistic model.
Los Alamos researchers are using the Nirvana Blue supercomputer to help develop the model. Nirvana Blue uses the same technology as Los Alamos' Blue Mountain machine, part of DOE's Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative and a key element of science-based stockpile stewardship activities.
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