Reconstruction of the Spring Hill Wildfire and Exploration of Alternate Management Scenarios Using QUIC-Fire

This open-access article was published Oct 15, 2021 in the journal Fire

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Abstract

New physics-based fire behavior models are poised to revolutionize wildland fire planning and training; however, model testing against field conditions remains limited. We tested the ability of QUIC-Fire, a fast-running and computationally inexpensive physics-based fire behavior model to numerically reconstruct a large wildfire that burned in a fire-excluded area within the New York–Philadelphia metropolitan area in 2019. We then used QUIC-Fire as a tool to explore how alternate hypothetical management scenarios, such as prescribed burning, could have affected fire behavior. The results of our reconstruction provide a strong demonstration of how QUIC-Fire can be used to simulate actual wildfire scenarios with the integration of local weather and fuel information, as well as to efficiently explore how fire management can influence fire behavior in specific burn units. Our results illustrate how both reductions of fuel load and specific modification of fuel structure associated with frequent prescribed fire are critical to reducing fire intensity and size. We discuss how simulations such as this can be important in planning and training tools for wildland firefighters, and for avenues of future research and fuel monitoring that can accelerate the incorporation of models like QUIC-Fire into fire management strategies. View Full-Text

Keywords: prescribed fire; wildfire; QUIC-Fire; coupled fire-atmospheric models; fuels

Citation

Gallagher, Michael R., Zachary Cope, Daniel Rosales Giron, Nicholas S. Skowronski, Trevor Raynor, Thomas Gerber, Rodman R. Linn, and John Kevin Hiers. "Reconstruction of the Spring Hill Wildfire and Exploration of Alternate Management Scenarios Using QUIC-Fire." Fire 4, no. 4 (2021): 72.