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NSF PR 98-45 - August 21, 1998
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Into the Blaze: Scientists Fly Above Raging Wildfires
It's wildfire season, and researchers hope to be in
the midst of such blazes, during the month of September.
Scientists funded by the National Science Foundation
(NSF) and affiliated with the National Center for
Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado,
will fly a highly instrumented C-130 research aircraft
around and over dangerous wildfires that may ignite
this season in the United States. The airplane is
reserved for four or five flights over a six-week
period out of Jefferson County Airport, northwest
of Denver.
"The goal of the research is to understand wildfire
behavior well enough to predict the course of a particular
fire," says Cliff Jacobs, program manager in NSF's
atmospheric sciences division, which funds NCAR. "The
flights will test a unique set of remote-sensing tools
to determine their combined effectiveness in depicting
fires." In addition, chemists will analyze emissions
from the burning biomass.
"We're most interested in understanding the violent,
unpredictable fires that kill firefighters," says
Larry Radke, NCAR co-principal investigator of the
Wildfire Experiment (WiFE). "We need to be able to
predict the course of a dangerous fire to develop
the most effective strategy for suppressing it, while
considering the resources available for firefighting."
WiFE is funded by the National Science Foundation,
which also sponsors NCAR and owns the NCAR-operated
research aircraft. The NSF/NCAR C-130 has the speed,
range and endurance to improve researchers' chances
of getting to a fire in time to observe it during
a dramatic and dangerous phase. The plane will circle
the fires at 150 knots or less, cruising between the
lowest safe minimum altitude and 10,000 feet.
Wildfires typically burn five million acres in the
U.S. annually, costing hundreds of millions of dollars.
And the price tag can only grow larger as urban sprawl
encroaches on forests nationwide, say experts. According
to Radke, large, violent wildfires often generate
their own controlling weather. The released heat can
spawn deep convection, even thunderstorms, with strong
and dangerous winds. So-called fire whirls, cousins
of tornadoes, hurl flaming logs and other burning
debris to locations miles away, setting other areas
ablaze.
Among the research aircraft's heat-sensing instruments
will be the new Thermacam, a digital high-resolution
infrared imager with a sensing range between -40 and
2,000 degrees Celsius. Fires can reach 1,200 degrees
C; a glowing candle tip, about 700. The Thermacam
stares out of an opening in one of the airplane's
windows and straight through smoke. The result is
color video images of hot, swirling air and flames,
detailing their motion, size, structure, and temperature.
Other instruments aboard the C-130 include a passive
microwave imager, an electric field meter, and a fire-imaging
spectrometer. The microwave imager targets areas of
woody, fire-feeding vegetation such as mesquite, which
is common in the southwest. Spotting the blaze's next
meal can help observers determine its future path.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)'s
Ames Research Center and the U.S.D.A. Forest Service's
Riverside Fire Research Laboratory will provide additional
scientists, observers, and instruments. The Rocky
Mountain Area Aviation and Fire Coordination Center
will help the scientists decide which fires to observe
and coordinate flights around the fires.
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