A Prognostic Meteorological Model Applied to the Study of a Forest Fire

Abstract

The mesoscale meteorological model MEMO was applied to a real fire situation, which occurred in the central area of Portugal, with a very complex topography. In order to numerically provide boundary values at a higher temporal and spatial resolution, a one-way nesting technique was used, and three nested domains, of resolutions 5x5 km², 2x2 km² and 1x1 km², were studied. This paper includes a comparison of the model results with the-available data and a description of the calculated wind fields for the three grids. The comparison indicates that the model describes adequately the meteorological situation during the simulated period of the fire and the comparison between the different grid results enhanced the importance of using refined simulations to depict the characteristics of the flow field in an area of such complexity.