1. New Developments in Wildfire Emission and Dispersion Forecasting with FireWork – The Operational Canadian AQ Forecast System with Near-Real-Time Biomass-Burning Emissions
8th International Workshop on Air Quality Forecasting Research
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Jack Chen1, Radenko Pavlovic2, Kerry Anderson3, Rodrigo Munoz-Alpizar2, Hugo Landry2, Michael D. Moran1
1Air Quality Research Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada
2Air Quality Modeling Applications Section, Environment and Climate Change Canada
3Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada

2. FireWork System https://weather.gc.ca/firework FireWork products
System runs twice daily (00z/12z) during North American fire season Apr.- Oct.
Near-real-time fire data from Canadian Wildland Fire Information System (based on NOAA/NASA satellite info.)
Hourly emissions (PM, VOC, NOx, NH3, CO, SO2) incorporated into the ECCC Regional Air Quality Deterministic Prediction System
Differences in model results with / without fire emissions represent PM contributions from fire sources
FireWork products
PM2.5/PM10 maps and animations from fire sources
AQHI based on FireWork forecasts
Accumulated PM2.5 impacts over 24h
Total column PM2.5/PM10
Other specialized products upon request (i.e. special fire activity near urban areas)
Forecasted PM2.5 contribution from wildfire (FireWork product) animation

3. Development of FireWork
FireWork was first developed and demonstrated in 2011
System ran in experimental mode:
Paper published in 2015
Pavlovic et al., 2015, J. Air & Waste Manage. Assoc., 66, , DOI: /
(IWAQFR 2011)
It became an official operational product in Apr. 2016
New Development: Improve integration with the Canadian Forest Fire Emissions Prediction System (CFFEPS)

4. Canadian Wildland Fire Information System
Current FireWork Operational System
AVHRR / MODIS / VIIRS
Canadian Wildland Fire Information System
CWFIS
Hotspot lat. / lon.
Fuel type
Fuel consumption
obs. and forecast meteorology
valid at local noon
SMOKE Processor
Uses one diurnal profile to convert emissions into hourly values
Converts VOC, NOx, PM into model species
Merges emissions with other major anthropogenic point sources
FEPS (BlueSky)
Total Daily Emissions per hotspot for PMs, VOCs, NOx, SO2, CO and NH3
CWFIS gets ignition/burning information from satellite retrievals – NOAA/NASA/USDA-Remote Sensing Applications Center
Assume 38.5 hectares/hotspot ;
FireWork runs twice daily
initiated at 00 UTC and 12 UTC
AQ model (GEM-MACH)

5. Limitations / Weaknesses
Coarse temporal resolution – daily vs. hourly
Uniform diurnal profile by local time
Limited interaction between meteorology ↔ fire behavior
Persistence assumption for 48-hr forecast
Briggs approach to model plume injection height
Fixed emission factors by FEPS
Fixed chemical speciation profile

6. Vertical Profiles – PM2.5 (for the same grid)
Primary Organic Carbon emissions from wildfire
(Fort McMurry)
12000 g/sec
F00-23
F24-48
Vertical Profiles – PM2.5 (for the same grid) 6h
10h
16h
32h
FireWork PM2.5 forecast
(a grid for Fort McMurry)

7. Plume injection Height
Kahn et al. GRL v35 (2008)
GRL vol. 35
FireWork for
- all points, hours in model domain

8. CFFEPS – Canadian Forest Fire Emissions Prediction System
Developed by Canadian Forest Service - Natural Resources Canada
Fuel moisture and rate of spread are adjusted following meteorology
Elliptical fire growth model
Emission types by flaming / smoldering / residual
Updated emission factors (PM, NO, NMHC, NH3, CO, CO2, CH4 etc.) by fire type (Urbanski 2014) – extensible to fuel type dependence
Plume injection height based on fire energy thermodynamics
Injection height considers energy released to the atmosphere by the fire and the ambient (environmental) lapse rate. Fraction of energy that goes to the plume is mixed through air column above the fire, the plume will rise until thermal equilibrium with the environment. The plume is being raised by dry adiabatic lapse rate.
Represent smoke plume on a tephigram. Q is energy enters plume, M is the mass of the plume. Orange triangle is energy per mass (Q/M) and is obtained by intersecting environmental lapse rate (ɣe), dry adiabat (ɣd) at speciifc surface temperature/potential temp/height/pressure. Subscripts is for S:surface, t:plume top, m:modified zone.
Entrainment is captured by assuming conical plume shape that increases plume width with height for a circular fire. Entrainment height and angle captures the increase in volume with height.

9. Canadian Wildland Fire Information System
Current Operational System
FireWork+CFFEPS System
obs. and forecast meteorology
valid at local noon
AVHRR / MODIS / VIIRS
Canadian Wildland Fire Information System
CWFIS
Hotspot lat. / lon.
Fuel type
Fuel consumption
FEPS (BlueSky)
Total Daily Emissions per hotspot for PMs, VOCs, NOx, SO2, CO and NH3
SMOKE Processor
Uses one diurnal profile to convert emissions into hourly values
Converts VOC, NOx, PM into model species
Merges emissions with other major anthropogenic point sources
AQ model (GEM-MACH)
CFFEPS
Hourly Emissions
Also available:
Plumerise parameters
Fire energy etc.
GEM hourly forecast meteorology
Post Processing
area (smoldering) vs. point (flaming)
chemical speciation (smoldering vs. flaming)
unit / format conversions etc.
QA and summary / reporting
AQ model (GEM-MACH)
FireWork runs twice daily
initiated at 00 UTC and 12 UTC

10. Canadian Wildland Fire Information System
FireWork+CFFEPS System
obs. and forecast meteorology
valid at local noon
AVHRR / MODIS / VIIRS
Canadian Wildland Fire Information System
CWFIS
Hotspot lat. / lon.
Fuel type
Fuel consumption
CFFEPS
Hourly Emissions
Also available:
Plumerise parameters
Fire energy etc.
GEM hourly forecast meteorology
Post Processing
area (smoldering) vs. point (flaming)
chemical speciation (smoldering vs. flaming)
unit / format conversions etc.
QA and summary / reporting
AQ model (GEM-MACH)
Forecast meteorology extracted at location include temp, and pressure height for 850, 700, 500, 250hpa
FireWork runs twice daily
initiated at 00 UTC and 12 UTC

11. Proof-of-Concept Experiment
FireWork_Base Case vs. FireWork+CFFEPS Simulation: to AB

12. Emission Differences: FEPS vs. CFFEPS (May 1-10 2016)
CO  ~60%
PMF  ~45%
Much of the differences resulted from EF updates (e.g. flm./smo./res. PM10_EF 8.59/19.63/19.63 in FEPS  13.75/20.33/30.26 CFFEPS ; PM2.5_EF 7.28/16.63/16.63  11.66/17.23/25.64 ; CO_EF 71.8/210/210  71.4/96.5/177.5 – unit g/kg)
(Urbaski et al 2014) combustion efficiency (MCE) is ~0.99 for pure flaming and ~0.65 to 0.85 (with typical value 0.80) for smoldering, these values used to calculate smoldering vs flaming EF. PM10 EF were not specified in Urbanski 2014, used the relations defined by Ward et al 1993 to calculate EF_PM10=1.18*EM_PM2.5
PMC  ~270%

13. Preliminary Results 6h 10h 32h 16h Kahn et al. GRL v35 (2008)
GRL vol. 35
10h
16h 6h
32h

14. 10-day Avg. PM2.5 Contributions from Fire
FireWork Base Case
FireWork CFFEPS
33 PM2.5 Stations in Alberta
May
Obs. Avg.
10.4 μg/m3
Forecast Avg.
5.5 μg/m3 
5.9 μg/m3
Mean Error
9.3 μg/m3
8.9 μg/m3
NMB %
-22%
-18% R.
0.18
0.22

15. PM2.5 Time Series: Fort McMurray (AB)
PM2.5 (µg/m3)
Mean Error
18 μg/m3 
13 μg/m3
NMB %
-0.7%
0.2% R.
0.51
0.58

16. PM2.5 Time Series: Fort Chipewyan (AB) (~200km north)
PM2.5 (µg/m3)
Mean Error
9 μg/m3 
3 μg/m3
NMB %
+0.3%
+0.1% R.
0.17
0.14

17. Summary and Future work
FireWork system has been updated to integrate with the Canadian Forest Fire Emissions Prediction System (CFFEPS)
Fire emissions vary by forecast hourly meteorology following fire behavior
Fire emission injection height is parameterized by fire thermodynamics
Updated emission factors and chemical speciation profiles
Initial tests show promising results
Continue testing and performance evaluation
Transition to operational implementation
R&D side: influence of fire heat flux on GEM microphysics, update emission factor by fuel type etc.
A more complete evaluation will be carried out for both 2014/2015 fire season.

18. Thank you. Please also visit FireWork posters by Radenko P
Thank you! Please also visit FireWork posters by Radenko P. and Rodrigo M.

19. Fort McKay (AB) (~60km north)
PM2.5 (µg/m3)
Mean Error
16 μg/m3 
20 μg/m3
NMB %
-0.2%
+0.2%
Corr.
0.12
0.37