Wild Fire Computer Model Helps Firefighters
A high-tech computer model called HIGRAD/FIRETEC, the cornerstone of a collaborative effort between U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station and Los Alamos National Laboratory, provides insights that are essential for front-line fire fighters. The science team is looking into levels of bark beetle-induced conditions that lead to drastic changes in fire behavior and how variable or erratic the behavior is likely to be.
Transcript
00:00:07 predicting wild fire behavior is exceptionally difficult when they work predictions can help fire managers save people's lives and property and bring the fire under control faster one research tool that complements and helps improve operational fire models is a Los Alamos National Laboratory developed computer model called highr firch in collaboration with the US Forest Service
00:00:32 Rocky Mountain research station it's used to examine impacts of forest structure change caused by severe bark Beetle infestation impacts that can lead to erratic fire behavior when bark beetles attack and kill a stand of trees if it's during a drought year and the next year there's a fire so there's still needles on the trees that fire is going to burn a lot faster than a live
00:00:58 stand of trees highr fire t is a physics model that simulates the interactions of fire fuels weather and Landscape hrad focuses on fluid dynamics of air flow and firch combines physics models of combustion heat transfer aerodynamic drag and turbulence there's no other model that that has the sophistication that highr fire tech has um the the operational models are fast but they
00:01:27 have to they have to get rid of some of the important physics in order to make them fast by looking at Wildfire conditions like variable winds and patches of dead trees scientists can more realistically predict fire Behavior important when high winds and dead trees combine is a catalyst for a crowning fire that can consume a whole Forest this new fire model can determine when
00:01:51 those conditions exist where previous models could not because they work with average Forest moisture content and assume all the trees are the same we have a model to represent fuels different types of fuels for instance uh Conifer trees and deciduous trees grasses shrubs um and those
00:02:17 fuels uh have different moisture contents so we can model very dry fuels or we can model wetter fuels the ultimate goal is to provide solid information to fire managers and firefighters increas ing their safety and helping them protect people in property when Wildfire strikes for Los Alamos National Laboratory on YouTube I'm Kevin roor