Fire Whirl Formation During a Valley Wind Reversal Daisuke Seto, Craig B. Clements, and Scott Strenfel Department of Meteorology San José State University San José, CA Warren E. Heilman and Xindi Bian Northern Research Station USDA Forest Service East Lansing, MI
Overview of Presentation Background Experimental design & instrument setup Observations - High-frequency wind data - Turbulence Kinetic Energy - Momentum fluxes Summary Future work
Fire Whirl Formation Location: Joseph D. Grant State Park (10mi. E of San Jose) Date: 7 Oct 2008 Movie: Andrew Joros Edit: Scott Strenfel
Experimental Design 20 ft tower – 10 Hz turbulence (18’, 276° ) – 1 Hz temperature & RH – 4 fine-wire theromocouples – Heat flux and CO 2 Tripod – wind speed & direction – temperature & RH
Topography
Wind speed and direction Fire whirl
High frequency horizontal winds
High frequency vertical wind
Std dev? Intensity?
Preliminary wind analysis
Summary
Future Work Run numerical model for simulation of fire whirl formation.
Acknowledgements