This is particularly true in the perspective of changing wildland management practices, the movement of populations to rural areas and climate change, where these coupled influences dramatically increase the risk of highly destructive fires known as “megafires”, with strong implications for public safety and air pollution far away from wildfires.ĭespite the development of a number of models, the use of wildland fire spread modeling has been relatively limited operationally. Whether used as a planning tool prior to prescribed burning or as an operational tool to predict the growth of uncontrolled wildfires, the accuracy of wildland fire spread models and their ability to provide useful information in a timely manner are of paramount importance. Providing accurate predictions of the spread of wildland fires has long been a goal of the fire research community. of Fire Protection Engineering, University of Maryland, Rochoux 1*, Cong Zhang 2, Michael Gollner 2 and Arnaud Trouvé 2ġ CECI (Climate, Environment, Coupling and Uncertainties),Ģ Dept. Illustration: Mélanie Rochoux (CERFACS) Rim fire data obtained from Evan Ellicott (University of Maryland).īy Mélanie C.
Flowchart of FIREFLY, the ensemble-based data assimilation system jointly developed by CERFACS and the University of Maryland for wildfire spread forecasting.