2014 FireWork Performance Analysis

The FireWork-GEM-MACH air quality forecast system with near-real-time wildfire emissions, which has been under development for several years, was run during the 2014 wildfire season by Environment Canada in experimental operational mode. For the first time, 48-hour FireWork forecasts were available to operational forecasters and external partners. As it turned out, there were major forest fires in the Northwest Territories of Canada for much of the summer whose plumes were observed as far away as Europe.

The forecast system is provided with near-real-time information about fire locations and characteristics for both the U.S. and Canada. Once processed, wildfire emissions from individual sources are injected into elevated model layers based on plume-rise calculations, after which transport and chemistry calculations are performed. A detailed FireWork performance analysis was done for the entire summer 2014 period, with a focus on periods and regions with intense fire activity. A number of performance metrics will be presented, including subjective analysis from operational forecasters and external users. We will also present ongoing and future work planned for the FireWork-GEM-MACH system.