Wildland fires and nuclear winters. Selected reconstruction of historic large fires. Technical report, 1 March 1985-28 February 1986

Technical Report · Fri Feb 28 04:00:00 EST 1986

OSTI ID:5947205

Pyne, S J; Omi, P N

Under the nuclear winter scenario, large wildland fires are expected to contribute to a general smoke plume and are considered potential analogues for the behavior of gigantic palls. As a means of testing the reasonableness of current estimates of a wildland fire contribution, the authors reconstructed from the historic record two major events; the Tillamook Burn of August 1933 and the 1910 fire complex in the Northern Rocky Mountains. Both events are near the upper limit for wildland fires - the Tillamook Burn for a single fire. For the 1910 fires, for which environmental data are skimpy, a modern analogue, the Sundance fire (1967), was used for certain extrapolations. Reconstructed fire behavior and estimated smoke production suggest that current nuclear winter models overestimate the magnitude of a wildland component.

• Research Organization: Iowa Univ., Iowa City (USA). Dept. of History
• OSTI ID: 5947205
• Report Number(s): AD-A-183805/1/XAB
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEFENSE
450202* -- Explosions & Explosives-- Nuclear-- Weaponry-- (-1989)
500200 -- Environment
Atmospheric-- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport-- (-1989)
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
AEROSOLS
COLLOIDS
DISPERSIONS
EXPLOSIONS
FIRES
FORESTS
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS
NUCLEAR WINTER
PLUMES
RESIDUES
SMOKES
SOLS