Test Case 5: Tripod

Description

The Tripod Fire was a large wildfire complex that burned in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest (~July 24-October 31, 2006) in the eastern Washington.  It was notable for its location in rugged terrain and potential for drainage slope flows.  The Tripod fire burned over 175,000 acres from late July until the end of October 2006. It is known as one of the largest fires to burn in the state of Washington.  Several particulate monitors were deployed downwind of the fire in a widely spaced network covering north central and northeastern Washington state, continuously collecting data from early August through mid-October 2006.  These data were available in real-time for air-quality assessment, and for future use in model assessment.

Purpose

To comprehensively evaluate model predictions of fuels, consumption, time rate of consumption, emissions, plume rise, and surface concentrations.  To examine the potential influence of terrain on the smoke dispersion, and the capability of the models to simulate and adequately represent this effect.

Analysis

Model-to-Observation and model-to-model.  All output levels through DISPERSION. Close examination at output levels VERTICAL PLUME HEIGHT, TOTAL COLUMN SMOKE and GROUND CONCENTRATIONS.

Time and space scales:

• Spatial domain resolution reflects the meteorological domain that covers the northwest (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, western Montana, and southwest Canada) with a 4 km2 resolution.
• Fuel information is brought in aggregate form from a 1 km2 spatial scale.
• Temporal reporting of simulated results is hourly

Observational data:

• AirFire and Region 6 mobile monitors
• Significant satellite imagery

Model runs

Output levels

• FUEL LOADING through GROUND CONCENTRATIONS

Input data

• Dates: July 24-October 31, 2006
• Daily fire information and size
• Meteorological data

Intermeditate initialization data

FUEL LOADING, SPECIATED EMISSIONS data available for initizaling

Guidelines

• No restrictions unless comparing with observational data;  then model must be independent of observational data.

• Runs starting with FUEL LOADING or SPECIATED EMISSIONS must use test case intermediate data.
  

Status

Preliminary forecast simulation runs have been done using earlier versions of the BlueSky Framework.  This earlier work can be used as a first pass base simulation case.

Notes

Some published analyses.