The Fire, Fuels, and Smoke program advances the state of the science related to modeling important processes which take place on the landscape. Advanced computing facilities provide the mission-critical capacity to expand the frontiers of modeling fire spread, fire danger, and air quality.

PRINCIPLE INVESTIGATOR

Bryce Nordgren, Physical Scientist

FUNCTION AND OBJECTIVES

A high performance computer system is a hard thing to concretely define. Becoming too preoccupied with the specifics of how many operations they can perform every second will ensure that the definition will need to be updated more often than any web page describing them will be. As a science organization, we are continually asking questions which demand more of the tools we use to find answers. These computers are the tools we use when pursuing the answers to particularly demanding questions.
We have pressed two types of high performance computers into service. One type is known as a symmetric multiprocessorcomputer (SMP), and the other is a cluster computer (sometimes known as a Beowulf cluster). Both of these types of computers provide some means to coordinate work on a single problem by many workers (processors). A SMP computer makes all the information about the entire problem available to every processor. On the other hand, a single processor in a Beowulf computer only has information relevant to the small piece of the problem it is working on at the time. A Beowulf computer tends to be less expensive than an SMP computer with a similar number of processors, but an SMP computer can tackle problems which require a more cooperative and less independent approach for solution. Problems and computers are matched based on their compatibility.
High performance computing is harnessed for three main purposes in the Fire, Fuels and Smoke program. We provide real time weather forecasts for the western US at a resolution compatible with the FARSITE model. We ingest real-time hotspot and burned area detections for use in a nationwide air quality model. Finally, we simulate real and hypothetical fire situations both in support of operational needs and to advance the state of the modeling art.

Operational Fire Weather Support

The RMRS Rocky Mountain Center (RMC)is one of the five regional members of the US FS Fire Consortia for Advanced Modeling of Meteorology and Smoke (FCAMMS).The RMC vision is to provide comprehensive weather support to wildland fire operations, prescribed burns, and air resource management. We deliver mass-balanced wind fields scaled down to 90-m resolution to support detailed air quality assessments and fire behavior models such as FARSITE. In addition, we provide real-time smoke dispersion forecasts for the entire Western USA using the BlueSky Modeling System.

Smoke Dispersion Research

The WRF-Chem Smoke Dispersion Model is a semi-operational research effort to advance the state of the art in air quality forecasting. It represents a versatile, real-time nationwide smoke dispersion forecasting system to predict the concentrations of particulates and gas phase pollutants downwind from large wildfires in United States and Canada. Through cooperation with NOAA and the Missoula office of the National Weather Service, the provisional version of the WRF-Smoke Dispersion forecasting system debuted in the summer of 2005, and the system has been continually enhanced ever since. The WRF-Smoke Dispersion modeling system is composed of fire products derived from real-time MODISdata, the FARSITEfire behavior simulator, and the Weather Research and Forecasting model with chemistry (WRF/CHEM), the next generation meteorological research and forecasting model with ?on-line? chemistry and aerosol.

Specifications

Cluster Machines

FUNDING ORGANIZATION

The Cray XD1 is funded by the National Fire Plan