Simulation tools to predict wildfire behavior and to help safety decision making

Transcription

1 Simulation tools to predict wildfire behavior and to help safety decision making

2 Marc Castellnou and Bruce Schubert Marc Castellnou, Fire Chief, Catalonia Fire Service Pau Costa Foundation, President Fire Behavior Analyst, GRAF Bruce Schubert, Owner, Emxsys Emxsys: Emergency Management Expert Systems Software Architect and Developer

3 If we want to use simulations and analysis of wildfires, we can try: Numerical Simulation: Rothermel model in Missoula, Montana - BEHAVE Logical Simulation: Based in empirical firefighter knowledge, Doug Campbell in USA and Marc Castellnou in Spain - CPS GIS Simulation: To show numerical models over maps and look for correlations and have a better understanding with spatial analysis - FARSITE, FLAMMAP Potential Simulation: Mix of logic, numeric and GIS, looking for chaotic and random ocurrence to identify PATTERNS of behavior - WFA

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6 The Huygens principle Used in all wildfire GIS simulations

7 Minimum Travel Time or Fire Paths Connection of ellipses are identified as supposed fire paths

8 So... Huygens principle of calculation makes one assumption: The fire spread is a row of ellipses, and that s the fire path. Minimum travel time (MTT) shows the fastest fire paths. Its an initial approach to identifying major runs. But... Reality shows us that fire moves using runs. Those runs start, grow, die, and then resume when the fire has alignments to produce another run. Watch the video...

9 WHY a new approach? Fire simulation doesen t actually reflect how fire moves Fire runs or fire paths can be infered using MTT adjustments - a well used technique in wildfire analysis today However, this method of simulation doesn t allow planning for unpredictable events. Everything is connected to the initial assumptions Unpredictable fire behavior is linked to long distance spotting and fire storms Fire moves over landscape fast and erratically but maintains the physic principles of radiation and convection that compose a fire run We need to simulate real runs possible over an incident scenario so we can plan for the expected and the unexpected

10 The standard approach for the unpredictable... A probabilistic simulation: Thousands of simulations using a variation of all data for example: wind +/- 25%, humidity +/- 30 % etc... We can see the chances of the fire spreading as predicted, and what the chances are of it doing different things if the situation becomes unpredictable.

11 How can we predict the unexpected? By not looking at just one single fire event By not complementing a single fire event simulation with a deterministic and statistical aproach of multi-simulation

12 We try to fill the unpredictable gap using: Alignment concept to focus on the fire run getting worse or better Models to create identified fire behavior for every single fire run Random and chaotic ignitions to look for unpredictable events Mapping over 3D terrain to show the flux of runs Concentrate on looking for highways of fire over the landscape Create a tool that can show how these highways change when the environment changes

13 New Vision We don t look a fire spreading, we don t look to GIS layers of fire behavior... We improve the CPS fire path concept and bring it to a new level: Concentration of paths: highways Lack of paths: windows of opportunity Identification of new highways mapped when situations change Identification of slowing down areas that break highways: good for safety and opportunity of operations When we look at the landscape, we look at the predictable and unpredictable fire runs, not just the ones that we can see but also the ones we don t see now--but could happen.

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15 HOW TO READ THE MAPS WE ARE CREATING: Big density of runs area Big density of runs area Target operation sites to break connections Low density of runs area Polygons where no Areas runs happen, identified present as a windows of of opportunity to stop stop fire spread spread

16 Highway of fire runs, axis of spread of any fire happening in this landscape under this condition HOW TO READ THE MAPS WE ARE CREATING:

17 New highways Almost all area have changed from fire that we can attack, to fire over our threshold of control. Almost all slopes are burning extreme. Highways still stay

18 Highway of extreme behavior that is showing windows of opportunity after a while. Those yellow breaks of high intensity are windows of heaven for firefighters inside the storm:

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