CANSAC’s new high-powered computer system can provide meteorologists with special forecast and information to predict smoke movement and air quality resulting from fires like this Martis fire outside Reno in June, 2001.
Contacts: John Doherty, DRI PIO john.doherty@dri.edu
Reno (775) 673-7313 Las Vegas (702) 862-5414
Heather Emmons, DRI PIO heather.emmons@dri.edu
Reno (775) 673-7488
Dr. Tim Brown, DRI Associate Research Professor tim.brown@dri.edu
Reno (775) 674-7090
Matt Mathes, USDA Forest Service wmathes@fs.fed.us
707-562-9004
All DRI News Releases available at: http://news.dri.edu/
May 18, 2004
New Calif.-Nev. smoke, air alliance charts new territory in visualizing wildland fires, air quality
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CANSAC’s new high-powered computer system can provide meteorologists with special forecast and information to predict smoke movement and air quality resulting from fires like this Martis fire outside Reno in June, 2001. |
Reno, Nev.—Better forecasting and faster responses to prescribed burns and wildland fires could result from a joint California-Nevada alliance getting underway this week. Unveiling a new high-performance cluster of computers, the new California and Nevada Smoke and Air Committee, or CANSAC, will meet Wednesday, May 19, at the Desert Research Institute to begin predicting fire danger and fire behavior, as well as smoke movement and air quality, to aid meteorologists and firefighters in both states.
CANSAC comprises approximately a dozen federal, state, county and local agencies. The group will dedicate the new alliance at DRI from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Members will see a demonstration of the new 32-processors computer system valued at some $750,000. The group will develop a path to meet the needs of participants, which includes agency representatives, a technical advisory group of scientists and modelers and end users.
Members include the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, California Division of Forestry and Fire Protection and the California Air Resources Board, with other agencies such as the San Joaquin Valley Air and County of Los Angeles Fire Department expected to come on board soon. CANSAC is also a member of the U.S.D.A. Forest Service National Fire Plan Fire Consortia for Advanced Modeling of Meteorology and Smoke.
In 1999, California fire weather meteorologists recognized the need for models to aid in forecasting fire weather and dispersion and transport of smoke from fires. The CANSAC partnership was formed to answer questions surrounding forecasting smoke and air quality resulting from prescribed burning, agricultural burning and wildland fires. The high-powered computer system from Silicon Graphics Inc. runs predictive models that help meteorologists, scientists, managers and fire specialists visually predict fire weather conditions for up to 72 hours, how a fire might burn under certain conditions, how the smoke will disperse and who it could impact, such as local hospitals, schools and others in a community.
One of the main goals of CANSAC is to support prescribed burning and smoke management throughout California and Nevada. Modeling forecasts will be integrated into the decision-making process for making appropriate burn-day decisions. The CANSAC products may also allow for more cost-effective fuel management and suppression strategies and provide important information for firefighter and public safety.
Aware that DRI had expertise in atmospheric and fire sciences, CANSAC approached one of their own members - Dr. Tim Brown, director of DRI’s Climate, Ecosystem and Fire Applications program, or CEFA - about collaborating with DRI to fulfill its goals.
Brown, an applied climatologist and associate research professor, established CEFA in the late 1990s in collaboration with the Bureau of Land Management and other federal and state land management agencies.
Housed at DRI, the new Silicon Graphics computer system uses a mesoscale meteorology model, called the MM5 model, to simulate and predict mesoscale atmospheric circulation. Mesoscale weather systems have a horizontal range from a few miles to hundreds of miles.
The MM5 model makes forecasts, calculating the weather every 108 seconds for three spatial domain areas over California and Nevada: 36, 12 and 4 kilometers, and for over 30 levels in the upper atmosphere. One challenge in this project is visualizing all of this information for effective decision-making.
“Atmospheric scientists research the physics of meteorology and turn it into mathematical equations,” Brown said. “We take what is observed now and try to predict what will happen using these equations on a computer. The feedbacks from the land surface, vegetation and oceans are also part of the process.”
Three associate scientists at DRI are already working on the CANSAC project, and DRI is looking to hire a post-doctorate and one graduate student in the near future.
A nonprofit, statewide division of the University and Community College System of Nevada, DRI pursues a full-time program of basic and applied environmental research on a local, national, and international scale. Nearly 500 full- and part-time scientists, technicians, and support staff conduct some 150 research projects at DRI annually. More than 85 percent of DRI's annual $33 million operating budget consists of research grants and contracts obtained by its scientists. The balance is received from the state of Nevada for administrative costs.
For more information about DRI's Climate, Ecosystem and Fire Applications program, visit http://www.cefa.dri.edu/.