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DATA AND MODELS

Data

A high-resolution reanalysis of global fire weather from 1979 to 2018 

Link to data set

We present a global high-resolution calculation of the Canadian Fire Weather Index (FWI) System Indices using surface meteorology from the ERA5-HRS reanalysis for 1979–2018. ERA5-HRS represents an improved dataset compared to several other reanalyses in terms of accuracy, as well as spatial and temporal coverage. The FWI calculation is performed using two different procedures for setting the start-up value of the Drought Code (DC) at the beginning of the fire season. The first procedure, which accounts for the effects of inter-seasonal drought, overwinters the DC by adjusting the fall DC value with a fraction of accumulated overwinter precipitation. The second procedure sets the DC to its default start-up value (i.e. 15) at the start of each fire season. We validate the FWI values over Canada using station observations from Environment and Climate Change Canada and find generally good agreement (mean Spearman correlation of 0.77). We also show that significant differences in early season DC and FWI values can occur when the FWI System calculation is started using the overwintered versus default DC values, as is highlighted by an example from 2016 over North America. The FWI System moisture codes and fire behavior indices are made available for both versions of the calculation at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3626193 (McElhinny et al., 2020), although we recommend using codes and indices calculated with the overwintered DC, unless specific research requirements dictate otherwise. read more

Modelling Software

Burn-P3 (probability, prediction, and planning) is a spatial fire simulation model that is used for land-management planning and wildland fire research. It uses the Prometheus fire-growth engine to simulate the ignition and spread of a very large number of fires. The inputs to Burn-P3 consist of fuels (e.g., vegetation), topography, weather, and patterns of fire ignitions. Its main output is a surface of fire probabilities, or burn probability map.  More...

 

Burn-P3 (probabilité, prédiction et planification) est un modèle de simulation des incendies forestiers destiné à la gestion du territoire et à la recherche. Burn-P3 utilise Prometheus, un logiciel de propagation des incendies permettant de simuler les allumages et la propagation d'un nombre important d'incendies. Les données modélisées sont les combustibles forestiers, les données météorologiques, la topographie et les patrons d'allumages. Burn-P3 produit une carte des probabilités d'incendie couvrant l'entièreté d'un vaste territoire. Plus...

Other Useful Tips and Tools

The team at Canada Wildfire put together a shortlist of our top website picks for all things weather, climate, wildfire, smoke, remote sensing, etc. The list includes brief descriptions and direct links.

Download the list

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