Skip to main content
OSTI.GOVU.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
 

Modeling the impact of smoke from prescribed fire on road visibility

Journal Article · · Environmental Modelling and Software
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1]
  1. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations
Prescribed fires are planned to achieve conservation and fuel reduction objectives while minimizing smoke ground concentration to limit health impacts and road visibility impairment. Prescribed burns cannot indeed be conducted if those hazards are not within predefined limits. This paper proposes a new framework to evaluate road visibility that overcomes the limitation of the state of the art model, VSMOKE. The framework leverages the fast-running framework QUIC-Fire/QUIC-SMOKE to capture fire and smoke dynamics, and the timing and duration of hazardous conditions on the road network close to the burn unit (within 50–100 km). The paper presents parametric study using a real burn plot at Fort Stewart (GA, USA), under hypothetical wind conditions to understand the interplay between buoyancy and smoke dilution. Here, results showed that faster winds caused fire escape while slower winds did not achieve a complete burn. Furthermore, faster winds featured brief road visibility reduction below braking distance.
Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOD; USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program; USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
Grant/Contract Number:
89233218CNA000001
OSTI ID:
2572561
Report Number(s):
LA-UR--24-28778; 10.1016/j.envsoft.2025.106510
Journal Information:
Environmental Modelling and Software, Journal Name: Environmental Modelling and Software Vol. 191; ISSN 1364-8152
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (14)

On the formation and persistence of superfog in woodland smoke journal May 2009
On the applicability of the koschmieder visibility formula journal March 1971
Integrating models to predict regional haze from wildland fire journal December 2006
QUIC-fire: A fast-running simulation tool for prescribed fire planning journal March 2020
QUIC-URB and QUIC-fire extension to complex terrain: Development of a terrain-following coordinate system journal January 2023
The effect of terrain-influenced winds on fire spread in QUIC-Fire journal September 2023
Dynamic interaction of multiple buoyant jets journal August 2012
More smoke today for less smoke tomorrow? We need to better understand the public health benefits and costs of prescribed fire journal September 2022
Mesowest: Cooperative Mesonets in the Western United States journal February 2002
QUIC transport and dispersion modelling of two releases from the Joint Urban 2003 field experiment journal January 2013
Revised Algorithm for Estimating Light Extinction from IMPROVE Particle Speciation Data journal November 2007
Modeling Multiple-Core Updraft Plume Rise for an Aerial Ignition Prescribed Burn by Coupling Daysmoke with a Cellular Automata Fire Model journal July 2012
Predicting Emission Source Terms in a Reduced-Order Fire Spread Model—Part 1: Particulate Emissions journal February 2020
Reconstruction of the Spring Hill Wildfire and Exploration of Alternate Management Scenarios Using QUIC-Fire journal October 2021

Similar Records

Modeling Smoke Plume-Rise and Dispersion from Southern United States Prescribed Burns with Daysmoke.
Journal Article · Fri Aug 19 00:00:00 EDT 2011 · Atmosphere · OSTI ID:1030971
Particulate and Trace Gas Emissions from Prescribed Burns in Southeastern U.S. fuel types: Summary of a 5-year Project
Journal Article · Fri May 01 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Fire Safety Journal, 74:71-81 · OSTI ID:1184293
The smoke-fireplume model : tool for eventual application to prescribed burns and wildland fires.
Conference · Tue Aug 17 00:00:00 EDT 1999 · OSTI ID:11939

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Particulate emission
Prescribed fire
QUIC-Fire/QUIC-SMOKE
Road Safety
Smoke transport and dispersion
Visibility