David Lavoué, Ph.D. Air Quality Research Branch Meteorological Service of Canada Toronto, Ontario

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1 David Lavoué, Ph.D. Air Quality Research Branch Meteorological Service of Canada Toronto, Ontario National Fire Emissions Technical Workshop New Orleans, LA May 4-6, 2004

2 Fire regions Canadian Wildfires tundra open boreal forest closed boreal forest eastern temperate forest prairies Cordilleran forest high altitude tundra 8,000,000 7,000,000 area burned number of fires ,000, area burned (hectares) 5,000,000 4,000,000 3,000, number of wildfires 2,000, ,000,

3 Alberta, Western Canada

4 Large Fires,

5 Emission Inventories Built 1 o x1 o cartographic emission inventories (GEIA format) to implement into transport and climate global and meso-scale models. Developed an application in the Geographic Information System MapInfo to map vegetation fire emissions. Gas (e.g., CO 2, CH 4, N 2 O, ) and particle (e.g., black carbon BC, particulate organic carbon POC, ) emissions are quantified with vegetation fuel data and monthly area burned statistics (e.g., from Global Fire Monitoring Center). Application also designed to implement existing fire emission inventories (e.g., agricultural & domestic fires), and also maps of other source types (e.g., fossil fuel combustion).

6 Black Carbon Emissions, 1989

7 , , , , , ,000 80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000 0 Black Carbon, Canada 30% BC (t)

8 ,250,000 2,000,000 1,750,000 1,500,000 1,250,000 1,000, , , ,000 0 Particulate Organic Carbon, Canada 90% POC (t)

9 Boreal Wildfires, 1998

10 Injection height Injection Mode Vertical profile 7 km level 6 km Boreal forest fires: Canada, Alaska 50% n 5 km 25% n-1 4 km 3 km Bush fires Boreal forest fires: Russia Grassland fires: Mongolia altitude 12.5% n-2 2 km Temperate forest fires 6.25% n-3 1 km Fossil fuel combustion Grid cell

11 Carbonaceous Aerosols in Canada, 1998 BC, May 1998 POM, May 1998 BC, July 1998 POM, July 1998 Colour isocontours = column loadings (µg m -2 ) Black isolines = surface concentrations (ng m -3 ) Colour isocontours = column loadings (mg m -3 ) Black isolines = surface concentrations (ng m -3 )

12 Impact on Air Quality Regional haze can affect northern local communities Smoke from large boreal forest fires may be transported to the southern populated regions Effect on visibility by prescribed fires in National / Provincial Parks Assess the relative contribution of wildfires to air quality in Canada Types of influence: - 1, direct in large fire region - 2, direct in other fire regions - 3, indirect

13 Dynamic Emission Modeling Goal: calculate gas & particle emissions with time step 1 hour. Based on regional weather, fuel, and topography data; with firefighting activities. Modules: Fire danger Spreading rate Fuel consumption Intensity Fire growth Emissions Fire Weather Index (FWI) system Fire Behavior Prediction (FBP) system Elliptical wavelets (Huygen s principle) Flaming / smoldering and 50 species (Battye and Battye, 2002) Injection height Energy & fire front length (Manins, 1985)

14 Fire Weather Canadian Fire Weather System (FWI) structure Fire Weather Data Temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, rain Wind speed Temperature, relative humidity, rain Temperature, rain Fuel Moisture Codes Fine Fuel Moisture Code (FFMC) Duff Moisture Code (DMC) Drought Code (DC) Fire Behavior Indexes Initial Spread Index (ISI) BuildUp Index (BUI) Fire Weather Index (FWI)

15 Fire Behavior Canadian Fire Behavior Prediction (FBP) System structure: 16 fuel types (spruce, pine, fir, aspen, grass) FFMC, ISI, BUI, wind speed and direction Percent slope and aspect Elevation, latitude, longitude, and date Elapsed time and point or line ignition Fuels Weather Topography Foliar moisture content Type & duration of prediction FBP system Rate of spread Fuel consumption Fire intensity

16 FBP Fuels and Ecoregions Boreal spruce and jack pine Arctic Cordillera Northern Arctic Southern Arctic Taiga Plains Taiga Shield Boreal Shield Atlantic Maritime Mixedwood Plains Boreal Plains Prairies Taiga Cordillera Boreal Cordillera Pacific Maritim e Montane Cordillera Hudson Plains

17 Wildfire Red Lake #7, 1986 Ignition May 21 - May 28 AM May 28 PM - May 29 PM May 30 AM to June 10 Lakes 5 km N 1 st phase 2 nd phase from Stocks and Flannigan (1987)

18 Hourly Weather Records

19 06/21 06/23 06/25 06/27 06/29 06/17 06/19 06/15 06/13 06/11 06/09 Daily FWI Fire Weather Index Burning period 40 very high extreme /30 05/02 05/04 05/06 05/08 05/10 05/12 05/14 05/16 05/18 05/20 05/22 05/24 05/26 05/28 05/30 06/01 06/03 06/05 06/07

20 Head Fire Spreading Rate Calculated hourly spreading rates of the head fire are compared to observed values for three days: Date Observed (m min -1 ) Calculated (m min -1 ) Morning max Afternoon max May May May (-18%) 28 (-22%) 16 (-16%) 24 (-27%) 32 (-11%)

21 Fire Growth Simulation

22

23 Area burned by hour (ha) 4,000 3,500 3,000 Area Burned May 27 May 28 May 29 May 30 2,500 2,000 1,500 1, May 21 May 22 May 23 May 24 May 25 May Area burned (ha) Number of hours since ignition 140, , ,000 80,000 60,000 40,000 20, Number of hours since ignition

24 Fuel Consumption Fuel consumed (kg m -2 ) Observed value -34% Canadian fuel map for the same location in GIS May May May May May May 26 Number of hours since ignition May 27 May May 29 May 30

25 Greenhouse Gases Emissions Emissions (t) 200,000 May 27 May 29 May ,000 May ,000 50,000 0 May 26 May 25 May 24 May 22 May 23 May Number of hours since ignition

26 Emissions, Snapshot

27 Injection Height

28 Hourly Weather with GEM May May N N W 45% 36% 27% 18% 9% E W 30% 24% 18% 12% 6% E Wind speed (knots) > S S

29 Daily FWI with GEM extreme very high

30 Application of Dynamic Modeling Forecast from active fire perimeters by coupling DEM with GEM. Dynamic wildfire emission modeling requires: - ignition point - natural barriers to fire propagation - firefighting activities (ground, water bombers, ) - precipitation schemes

31 Emission Modeling for Air Quality Air quality impact scenarios with the AURAMS 21 km grid Apply sigmoidal growth curve to fires Area burned (hectares) Elapsed time since ignition (hours) Consider fuel consumption variability with hourly FWI and FBP systems implemented into the Canadian weather forecast model GEM

32 Quebec Fires, ha+, June 28 July 15 July 8

33 Quebec Fires, 2002

34 Summary Developed a GIS application to map monthly emissions of vegetation fires, and incluing other source types. These emissions maps are adapted to global transport and climate models. Dynamic emission model for forecasting Canadian forest fires is under development. Will be coupled to the weather forecast model GEM. Studying past scenarios of impact on air quality with an alternative scheme to dynamic modeling.