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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Contents Vol 19(3)

Turbulent kinetic energy during wildfires in the north central and north-eastern US

Warren E. Heilman A B and Xindi Bian A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Northern Research Station, USDA Forest Service, East Lansing, MI 48823, USA.

B Corresponding author. Email: wheilman@fs.fed.us

International Journal of Wildland Fire 19(3) 346-363 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF08076
Submitted: 17 May 2008  Accepted: 30 July 2009   Published: 13 May 2010

Abstract

The suite of operational fire-weather indices available for assessing the atmospheric potential for extreme fire behaviour typically does not include indices that account for atmospheric boundary-layer turbulence or wind gustiness that can increase the erratic behaviour of fires. As a first step in testing the feasibility of using a quantitative measure of turbulence as a stand-alone fire-weather index or as a component of a fire-weather index, simulations of the spatial and temporal patterns of turbulent kinetic energy during major recent wildfire events in the western Great Lakes and north-eastern US regions were performed. Simulation results indicate that the larger wildfires in these regions of the US were associated with episodes of significant boundary-layer ambient turbulence. Case studies of the largest recent wildfires to occur in these regions indicate that the periods of most rapid fire growth were generally coincident with occurrences of the product of the Haines Index and near-surface turbulent kinetic energy exceeding a value of 15 m2 s–2, a threshold indicative of a highly turbulent boundary layer beneath unstable and dry atmospheric layers, which is a condition that can be conducive to erratic fire behaviour.


Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr Kenneth Clark, USDA Forest Service, for providing observational turbulence data collected at the Silas Little Experimental Forest in New Jersey. Funding for this research was provided by the US National Fire Plan.


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