Simulating seasonal weather influences on wildfire behavior in Glacier National Park, Montana
Abstract
Wildfires play a critical role in ecosystem functionality throughout Glacier National
Park (GNP), but require accurate modeling to mitigate risks to human lives and property.
The process of modeling fire behavior is a computationally intensive, multi-scalar
effort involving approximation of interactions between wind, climate, fuel sources,
and the fire itself. Despite its importance to understanding fire behavior, the most
commonly used fire model (FARSITE) does not integrate fire-weather feedback. My
analysis provides a deeper understanding of the seasonal behavior of fire in GNP by
comparing the spread of numerous simulated fires during the height of summer against
the end of the fire season in October. To explore the variance caused by each model’s
treatment of local weather feedbacks, I compare the commonly used FARSITE model—which
is easy to use, but relies on steady state temperature and wind inputs—to the performance
of the experimental WRF-FIRE model—which requires supercomputing capabilities, but
provides the ability to model advanced weather dynamics and feedback loops at multiple
spatial and time scales. As an intermediate approach, I added diurnal and orographic
wind influences to FARSITE with the WindNinja extension. I ran all models for a 24-hour
period for two time periods, on 1 July and 20 October 2013, to determine the relative
difference in burned area over the fire season. Across all time intervals, the July
runs demonstrate a greater area burned than in October. In addition to reducing seasonal
variability, the addition of feedback mechanisms cause WRF-FIRE to predict overall
more area burned and a faster rate of spread than with FARSITE. This pattern continues
with the addition of diurnal and orographic wind dynamics with WindNinja, generating
nearly twice of the total area burned compared to the standard FARSITE model. These
results demonstrate that the fire-wind relationship is critical for accurately modeling
the impact of wildfires, and that fire-weather feedbacks largely override the impacts
of seasonal climatic factors. The results of these simulations provide powerful information
to fire managers and ecologists in Glacier National Park, suggesting that models using
wind dynamics are essential for understanding the impact of fire in the Northern Rocky
Mountains.
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https://hdl.handle.net/10161/8564Citation
DiBiase, Anthony (2014). Simulating seasonal weather influences on wildfire behavior in Glacier National Park,
Montana. Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/8564.Collections
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