FIRESMOKE Project Main Objective
The development of new tools that enable the modeling of forest fire behavior is increasingly crucial. These tools facilitate the management of firefighting operations, the planning of controlled fires to reduce fuel loads, the assessment of fire risk, and the evaluation of air quality in fire plumes and it risks to public health. Additionally, they help track the trajectories of smoke plumes, including anthropogenic and biogenic pollutants.
In the FIRESMOKE project, a model for the spread of surface forest fires, coupled with the forecast atmospheric model BRAMS, will be developed. This model simulates real-time regional-scale scenarios and will be updated to also simulate the progression of fire on canopy trees, along with an ignition scheme based on sources from both natural and human causes. The system serves as a valuable tool for simulating the dispersion of forest fire plumes.
With this model, it is possible to simulate meteorological data, air chemistry, and fire parameters, creating a domain covering continental Portugal with its diverse forest ecosystems. In this domain, forest fires involve a complex multiscale process, encompassing variations in fire scale from millimeters to hundreds of kilometers. These simulations will be integrated into a public visualization system, featuring maps of air pollutants from smoke fires and general pollution, accompanied by health risk warnings.
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