The Role of Heat Extinction Depth Concept to Fire Behavior: An Application to WRF-SFIRE Model

Abstract

During a wildland fire a significant amount of energy, through sensible and latent heat fluxes, is released into the lower levels of the troposphere, altering the atmospheric conditions in the vicinity of the fire and consequently the overall fire behavior. The maximum height in which the released heat fluxes are absorbed by the air is a valid scientific question, as it sheds more light on the problem of how the emitted energy from a fire should be parameterized. In WRF-SFIRE model, the calculated heat fluxes from the fire are inserted into the lower levels of the atmosphere through a formulation known as heat extinction depth, where an exponential decrease with height is considered. In this preliminary study, we investigate the role of this formulation to the fire behavior, throughout a number of sensitivity experiments, where different extinction depths are chosen. Our results indicate that the model is sensitive to the choice of the heat extinction depth parameter. This work was supported by computational time granted from the Greek Research & Technology Network (GRNET) in the National HPC facility---ARIS---under project ID PA001010---LESinFIRE.