Bulgarian WildLand Fires Calibration Activites with S-Fire (WRF-Fire) and FARSITE

1. Bulgarian WildLand Fires Calibration Activites with S-Fire (WRF-Fire) and FARSITE Nina Dobrinkova, PhD

2. In this presentation … Introduction S-Fire (WRF- fire) and Farsite models, some basics Simulations done until now Conclusions

3. Forest fire statistics - Europe The number of fires since 1980 according to statistics done for the southern member states has increased more than two times in some years.

4. Forest fire statistics - Bulgaria Bulgaria’s statistic about forest fires • 1994 to 2006 1971 to 2006 • considerable increase of the number of fires after 1990 (more than 1000 in year 2000) • more than 30 times increase of the burned area in the recent years

5. NASA Hot Spots statistics - Bulgaria Fires in Bulgaria bigger than 1 km. • 2006 to 2012 2006 to 2012 • More than 3500 fires in 2006 mostly surface fires

6. NASA Hot Spots statistics – Bulgaria Occurrence

7. WildLand Fires Nature

8. WildLand Fires Nature - Surface Fires • Surface Fires are close to the ground and they spread either in peat (Picture 1) or in the grass- or bush- lands (Picture 2) Picture 1 Picture 2

9. WildLand Fires Nature - Crown Fires • Crown Fires usually occurs after active Surface Fire near by leader fuels in Conifer type of forests (as shown on the picture) Propagation of Crown Fires

10. WildLand Fires Nature - Spotting Fires • Spotting Fires occur in conifer forests where we observe torching trees. The embers may fly from 15-30 meters. Propagation of Spotting Fires

11. WildLand Fires Nature – Fire Acceleration • Fire Acceleration is fire which occur on very steep slopes. In this wildland fires the burning material and the steep slope are moving the fire through the terrain very fast. Fire Acceleration Spread

12. Simulation preparedness actions Fuel Types Digital Elevation Model Meteorological data

13. Original Rothermel Formula - FARSITE where: • R– is parameter for re spread or the so called ROS(quasi-steady Rate Of Spread), • Ixig– is the horizontal spread of the heat absorbed by the burning materials • evaporating their water content, • –is the density of the burning materials which are heated until the re start, • Qig– is the absorbed energy by the burning materials while they are evaporating • their water content, • –is the gradient of vertical intensity in the plane, where the energy is released.

14. FARSITE – weather input weather.wtr Month Day Precip Hour1 Hour2 Temp1 Temp2 Humid1 Humid2 Elevation rt1 rt2 L/m2 UTC UTC tmin/0C max/0C max% min% m UTC UTC 12 9 56 2300 900 1 9 100 92 850 300 2300 •Precipitation is the daily rain amount specified in hundredths of an inch or millimeters (integer). •Hour1 corresponds to the hour at which the minimum temperature was recorded (0-2400). •Hour2 corresponds to the hour at which the maximum temperature was recorded (0-2400). •Temperatures (Temp1 is minimum; Temp2 is maximum) are in degrees Fahrenheit or Celsius (integer). •Humidities (Humid1 is maximum; Humid2 is minimum) are in percent, 0 to 99 (integer). •Elevation is in feet or meters above sea level. NOTE: these units (feet or meters) do not have to be the same as the landscape elevation theme (integer). •Precipitation Duration is optional with the beginning (rt1) and ending (rt2) times (0-2400) of the daily rain amount. Only one time period per day is allowed. If these fields are left blank the precipitation amount is assumed to be distributed

15. FARSITE – wind input wind.wnd Month Day Hour Speed Direction CloudCover UTC km/h deg % 12 9 300 23 167 100 •Hour is specified as 0-2359, to the nearest minute (integer). •Speed is either the 20ft windspeed specified in miles per hour or the 10m windspeed in kilometers per hour (0-300, integer) •Direction is specified in degrees, clockwise from north (0-360), (integer). A "-1" in the direction field indicates the winds to be up slope, similarly downslope winds can be specified with a "-2". •CloudCover is specified as a percentage, 0 to 100 (integer).

16. FARSITE – DEM, Aspect, Slope, Canopy Cover and Fuel Model inputs File format ACII grid (ESRI format) ncols 36 nrows 36 xllcorner 337098.21876909 yllcorner 4593900.8118804 cellsize 30 NODATA_value -9999 195 208 238 270 285 287 173 141 123 119 117 114 122 143 222 257 265 263 219 158 148 195 226 229 230 225 222 225 0 0 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 193 228 260 268 247 178 162 150 141 134 126 116 120 138 236 261 260 248 215 159 120 175 225 225 222 214 222 232 225 0 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 210 259 273 264 211 167 158 156 157 155 144 132 132 143 257 267 259 239 226 189 122 157 217 220 222 220 238 247 246 0 0 -9999 -9999 -9999 -9999 255 277 273 243 185 158 148 152 160 161 149 142 157 196 259 266 260 239 230 190 131 154 207 217 227 236 247 243 218 180 180 176 -9999 -9999 -9999 279 278 250 206 179 151 138 140 150 153 144 143 170 215 255 268 258 235 223 177 142 161 210 228 246 245 231 223 200 179 179 166 149 152 155 163 281 273 206 198 178 147 136 135 139 138 134 139 173 237 262 267 251 227 199 160 146 178 236 263 272 263 221 216 196 177 178 173 166 164 164 164 282 257 162 196 177 155 139 131 130 127 125 132 191 259 266 258 231 210 177 153 151 209 259 274 276 274 208 205 186 174 176 175 171 167 166 169 283 149 142 182 174 170 159 140 130 128 125 132 219 263 264 250 217 190 167 159 170 231 262 270 269 244 162 165 167 169 174 177 176 171 170 174 301 94 123 161 173 182 175 151 138 134 128 136 243 266 262 234 200 179 163 164 197 250 263 264 253 195 163 159 157 163 172 177 178 177 177 177

17. S-Fire (WRF-Fire) basics (1) Mathematically the fire model is posed in the horizontal (x,y) plane. The fire propagation is in semi-empirical approach and it is assumed that the fire spreads in the direction normal to the fireline. This is given from the the modified Rothermel’s formula: S=min{B0,R0 + ɸW + ɸS}, where B0 is the spread rate against the wind; R0 is the spread rate in the absence of wind; ɸW is the wind correction ɸS is the terrain correction

18. Simulation results with S-fire on Janus Cluster at Denver Colorado University with Bulgarian case fire near Harmanli. • We run S-Fire (WRF-Fire) model with real input data and we set the inputs at: • Atmospheric model was run on 2 domains with 250m and 50m resolution • 41 vertical levels were used • The fire module, coupled with the atmospheric domain is run on 5m resolution with 0.3s time step • Simulated burned area and actual data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forest and Food showed good comparison

19. Simulation results on the Janus cluster at UCDenver Simulated burned area Real burned area

25. Parallel performance • Computations were performed on the Janus cluster at the University of Colorado. The computer consists of nodes with dual Intel X5660 processors (total 12 cores per node), connected by QDR InfiniBand • The model runs as fast as real time on 120 cores and it is twice faster on 360 (real time coef. = 0.99)

26. Simulation results with S-fire on Blue Gene/P supercomputer with Bulgarian case fire near Harmanli. The simulated piece of the real fire is 2,5min long. The real-time coefficient is - 0,0054 much bellow 1. IBM Blue Gene/P configuration is consisted of two racks with 2048 computational nodes connected by PowerPC lines, 450 processors, 8192 cores and total 4 TB operational memory. Every core can process two data streams (with double precision) after the floating point. Sixteen input-output nodes are connected by optical connection 10 Gb/s Ethernet

27. FARSITE – test case with real data from US We set the simulation for August 10th, 11th and 12th and the hours for the run are 12.00 h noon time on August 11th until 18.00 h on August 12th. The simulation run on 2 core laptop for 1 min. 6 sec. The simulated area is 46 km2

28. Follow up on the test area of Zlatograd forestry department

29. Calibration of the Fires in the ZlatogradArea Elevation (terrain description) Slope (terrain description) Aspect (terrain description) Weather Canopy Cover - Fuel Type (Anderson 13 or Scott-Burgan 40 classes. Acceptable are Custom Types also.)

30. Vegetation Map of Zlatograd area Bondev (1991) Paper Map Digitalized Paper Map

31. Comparison of Bondev (1991) vegetation map and Forestry Map Corine Map Forestry Map Bondev Digital Map

32. Comparison of Forestry and Corine vegetation maps for Zlatograd Areas Corine Map Forestry Map

33. Forestry map fragment Bondev map fragment Corine map fragment

34. Calibration over real fires on Zlatograd area

35. FARSITERUN

36. Conclusions • Data availability is huge problem in Bulgaria • FARSITE is appropriate for operational estimations in real time if there is correct input • S-Fire is giving opportunities for different weather scenarios, but less flexibility in fire propagation, because of the surface fire spread representation only. • Bulgaria needs Burning Materials Maps development for the cases where fire behavior modeling is applied

37. Acknowledgements International project under the Greece-Bulgria territorial cooperation program 2007-2013, accepted under priority axis: Quality of Life and area of intervention: Protection, Management & Promotion of the Environmental reseources. Project name:”Open Protocols and tools for the education and Training of voluntary organisations in the field of Civil Protection, against natural Dissasters (forest fires) in Greece and Bulgaria”, acronym: “OUTLAND”

38. Thank you for your attention! Nina Dobrinkova, PhDnido@math.bas.bg