CRC Project B2.1 Smoke Management

Program Manager Dr Graham Mills

Researcher Dr. Alan Wain

Behaviour of Smoke Plumes and Hazes from Rural or Urban Fires

Links to Examples

Increased pressure, from various sources, to reduce available fuels has followed several bad fire seasons, particularly in south eastern australia. As a result land managers are looking to burn more land, more often. However the impact of smoke from prescribed and fuel reduction burns and wildfires on community health and safety is a key concern which must be addressed.
 
The overall objective of this work is to assist in reducing this impact. In particular, this sub-program will assist prediction of the transport and dispersion of smoke from an urban or rural fire, and predict concentrations of smoke particulates at locations affected by the smoke plume.

This project builds on a successful Australasian Fire Authorities Council –funded project that demonstrated via an experimental program how useful forecasts of smoke transport from potential sites of controlled burns can be in aiding the planning of prescribed burns. The system uses the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology’s operational high-resolution numerical weather prediction models to provide forecast wind and temperature fields and the location and strength of the smoke plume.

The product is delivered via a registered-user web-site, and includes the ability for users to interactively specify the ignition sites. The early part of the project will enhance product delivery to fire and land management agencies, integrate the guidance product with other meteorological information, and deliver products in an agency-compatible form. In the early to middle stages of the project there will be an emphasis on source height specification, together with validation against field observations. Over the life of the project there will be a move to include the use of more powerful atmospheric chemistry models.

Techniques for estimating emissions from a given source will be developed in several CRC projects and will then be incorporated into such models.