Some of the material in is restricted to members of the community. By logging in, you may be able to gain additional access to certain collections or items. If you have questions about access or logging in, please use the form on the Contact Page.
Kung, J. J. (no date). Three Modeling Approaches to Predicting Pyrocumulus Formation during Prescribed Burns at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. Retrieved from https://purl.lib.fsu.edu/diginole/2020_Spring_KUNG_fsu_0071N_15677
Prescribed burning is a land management technique conducted at Eglin Air Force Base (AFB), Florida (FL), by Jackson Guard. Sometimes a fire-induced cumulus cloud, called a pyrocumulus (pyroCu), forms over a surface fire. A towering pyrocumulus can lead to downbursts that challenge Jackson Guard teams’ capacity to keep fire behavior under control. There has been limited effort devoted to forecasting pyrocumuli accurately. This thesis presents three methods of modeling for predicting pyrocumulus formation prior to scheduled burns at Eglin AFB: numerical, statistical, and qualitative. The numerical modeling approach entailed simulating 14 burn dates using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model’s coupled fire-atmosphere module, WRF-Fire. A Rate-of-Spread (ROS) parameter was developed for simulating the outcomes of future burns, with the prescribed burn model matching observed pyrocumuli at a 71% success rate. The statistical modeling approach used a sample of 31 burn dates to build, train, and test predictive equations constructed using logistic regression. With an ensemble of 12 equations, the statistical model performed with 74% accuracy in hindcasting the observed outcomes. By only using two of the better-performing equations, the truncated statistical model was able to match observed outcomes 77% of the time. In the third approach, a qualitative model was built and tested on the same 31 burn dates’ thermodynamic soundings and burn parameters. The categorization algorithm was converted into a flowchart, with decision points trained to optimally predict the sample’s observed outcomes. The qualitative model hindcasted pyrocumulus formation at a 74% success rate. These approaches to prediction yielded three distinct operational tools for Jackson Guard, with arguably good success at matching observations. Thus, a fruitful proof of concept was accomplished through this research. Furthermore, each of the three methodological frameworks can conceivably be tailored for fixed-site prescribed burn operations outside northwestern Florida.
A Thesis submitted to the Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science.
Bibliography Note
Includes bibliographical references.
Advisory Committee
Jeffrey Chagnon, Professor Directing Thesis; Henry Fuelberg, Committee Member; Robert Hart, Committee Member.
Publisher
Florida State University
Identifier
2020_Spring_KUNG_fsu_0071N_15677
Kung, J. J. (no date). Three Modeling Approaches to Predicting Pyrocumulus Formation during Prescribed Burns at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. Retrieved from https://purl.lib.fsu.edu/diginole/2020_Spring_KUNG_fsu_0071N_15677