WindNinja is a computer program that computes spatially varying wind fields for wildland fire application.

It was developed to quickly simulate (less than 1 minute) terrain effects on wind flow for time sensitive emergency response applications. It requires elevation data for the modeling area (in the form of an ASCII Raster DEM file, FARSITE landscape file, GeoTiff, or ERDAS Imagine file), a domain-mean initial wind speed and direction, and specification of the dominant vegetation in the area. A diurnal slope flow model can be optionally turned on or off. Outputs of the model are ASCII Raster grids of wind speed and direction (for use in spatial fire behavior models such as FARSITE and FlamMap), a GIS shapefile (for plotting wind vectors in GIS programs), and a .kmz file (for viewing in Google Earth). WindNinja is typically run on domain sizes up to 50 kilometers by 50 kilometers and at resolutions of around 100 meters. WindNinja can be downloaded from http://firemodels.fire.org.

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS

Jason Forthofer, Mechanical Engineer
Bret Butler, Research Mechanical Engineer

Staff

Kyle Shannon, Physical Science Technician

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

The goal of this research project is to develop a free, fast running, and easy to use tool to simulate terrain effects on wind flow at scales relevant to wildland fires.

PROJECT STATUS

Development of WindNinja is ongoing. The current release is considered stable (download from http://firemodels.org), and efforts are underway to add additional features such as initialization from coarse mesoscale weather models, a 3D graphics window, and a built-in automated elevation data fetcher.

FUNDING ORGANIZATIONS

This project has been funded by the US Forest Service, Joint Fire Science Program and the Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands at Colorado State University.