1. July 11, 2006 / 3p Phase IV Projection Emission Inventories
Fire Emissions Joint Forum
July 11-12, 2006 Portland, OR
Dave Randall, Air Sciences Inc.

2. Phases of Fire EIs Phase II (historical 2002)
Baseline (Phase III) (nominal )
Projections (Phase IV) (nominal 2018) Activity Scenarios for each fire type
Less
Likely
More
Note: The PLANNING inventories (Phase III & IV) are unique EI’s…unique from each other AND unique from Phase II

3. 2018 Projection Activity Scalars
Fire-type
Less
Likely
More
Wildfire
0.9 x (WF base + WFU base)
0.5 x (WF base + WFU base)
WFU
0.1 x (WFU base + WF base)
0.5 x (WFU base + WF base)
1.0 x (WFU base + WF base)
Rx Agency
0.25 x IFC
0.5 x IFC
Interagency Fuels Committee activity targets
Rx S/P/O
1.0 x Baseline
2.0 x Baseline
3.0 x Baseline Ag
Baseline – (SJV & WA Orchard Removal)
NFR
NRCS 2018 estimate

4. Anticipated 2018 Activity Levels (Acres)
Fire-type
Less
Likely
More
WF + WFU
4.7 MM
7.0 MM
Rx (broadcast + piles)
1.0 MM
2.0 MM
3.7 MM Ag
1.7 MM
NFR
1.3 MM

5. Air Quality Planning Fire EI Suites

9. Rounding Deviation from Scalars and Activity Targets
Multiplying a baseline level times its scalar arrived at an activity target in acres.
By design, the Calc Tool pulls fire-days (with their complete acres and emissions) up to this activity target.
For every jurisdiction in the calc tool, the event-based projection EI will therefore deviate from the activity targets.
Can be thought of as a “rounding error.”

10. Rounding Deviation Statistics
Assessed deviation by-state or by-agency or by-burn type for all fire types and scenarios.
Did not attempt to hit each Rx state-agency-burn type combination.
Average deviation of 2.6% for all 124 scalars needed for 2018 projections suites.
10 projections were over 10%. These had fewer than 100,000 acres as the projection target so could be affected by a large fire in seed data.

11. Detailed Results and Calc Tool Methods

12. ERT APPLICATION RULES Implementation
Regulatory Will of the Agencies - % of Controllable Acres to which ERT’s are applied
Emission reductions due to ERTs
Technical Implementation
Entire EI
Controllable Portion
of the EI
Rx Events
ANTH Portion of Rx
Events
AGGRESSIVE
FOR EACH EVENT TO WHICH ERT’s ARE APPLIED:
ANTH Events Subject to ERT Rules
ANTH Events to which ERT’s are applied (a fnc. of Freq of Use of the ERT in the sub-region
EMISSIONS X (1-ERF)
LIKELY
ANTH Portion of Rx Events
ANTH Events to which ERT’s are applied
LEAST AGGRESSIVE
ANTH Portion of Rx Events
ANTH Events to which ERT’s are applied

19. Basic Steps to Run the Calc Tool

20. Calc Tool Prototype as Excel Workbook

21. Load Seed Data (WRAP Baseline)

22. 2- Tool calculates number of new events/acres needed
1- User enters scalars
2- Tool calculates number of new events/acres needed
3- Hit “Go” and events are “looked up” from randomized Source sheet into New Events sheet

23. Post Processing
Apply ERTs after Calc Tool selection (Will be integrated into Calc Tool.)
ERT Seasonal Suites for lookup table being finished after yesterdays’ Strawman Session.
Combine output into single 250,000 record all-scenario database for graphing & QA.
Format into SMOKE and NIF files.

24. Significant Features of 2018 Projection Calc Tool

25. Significant Features – Software Architecture
Software design strategy of “seed data” versus programming code to create new EI
Customize historic data to have appropriate seed events for desired projection EI.
Leave Calc Tool code to only choose events up to activity targets, not modify events per se.
Benefit: User can alter event data to suite EI planning rather than reworking code.
Pre-processing seed data
Random sort of events so new EI doesn’t have undesirable patterns in events. (For instance an 0.5 scalar pulls events only from counties A – M because of original order.)
Hand remove or flag ineligible events: Certain large Rx fires were causing big rounding errors in jurisdictions with small targets. Flag a realistic size limit for WFU events in WF pool.

26. Significant Features – Rx Stem Cell Events
Creating fire events for 2018 where none existed in historic data (aka “stem cell events”)
Scalars and IFC activity targets resulted in 2018 Rx activity projected for state-agency-burn type combinations which did not exist in 2002/baseline seed data.
For only those instances, prototype prescribed burns were created outside the calc tool and augmented into seed data.
50 acre broadcast burns and 25 acre pile burns dropped on every 12-km grid cell per agency land where needed.
Fuel loading (at centroid), lat/lon, and random date assigned to event (piles: April or November; broadcast: April or October).
Benefit: Reasonable size and date with site-specific fuel loading satisfies this unexpected gap filling. Compatible with cloning.

27. Significant Features – Event Management
Cloning events
Rx events are re-used to create more activity.
WF events are re-used to achieve WFU targets.
“Data inbreeding” mitigated by adjusting date +/- 7 days and assuming event occurs elsewhere in same model grid cell.
Benefit: Create additional realistic model-ready activity for 2018 while not simply scattering events or scaling up emissions in existing events.
Handling multi-day events and smoldering records
Random sort of seed events does preserve fire-day order and smolder record pairing.
Benefit: Entire events are pulled into new EI.

28. Next Steps
Deliver formatted output files from Phase IV Calc Tools and group into modeling suites – files ready for posting .
Deliver Draft documentation for Phase III/IV Task Team Review – draft document should be posted within a week.
Incorporate comments and deliver Phase III/IV Final documentation.