An Overview of the Rapid Deployments to Wildfires Experiment (RaDFIRE)

This talk provides an overview of The Rapid Deployments to Wildfires Experiment (RaDFIRE). RaDFIRE was a meteorological field campaign dedicated to observing fire-atmosphere interactions, including wildfire plume dynamics, during large active wildfires. Using a rapidly deployable scanning Doppler lidar, airborne Doppler radar, and a suite of other instruments, the field campaign sampled 21 wildfires from 2013-2016 in the Western US. Access to wildfires was accomplished via team members training as wildland firefighters and through integration with wildland fire management agencies. In this presentation we highlight some of the unique observations obtained during the field campaign including (1) vigorous vertical-axis vorticity in wildfire convective plumes, (2) newly discovered smoke-induced density currents, and (3) extreme updrafts associated with developing pyro-convective clouds. Collectively, these RaDFIRE observations reveal important fire-atmosphere interactions that can affect fire spread and intensity.