5th Symposium on Fire and Forest Meteorology and the 2nd International Wildland Fire Ecology and Fire Management Congress

Monday, 17 November 2003: 2:45 PM
Mobile Radar Observations of the Big Elk (2002) and Roberts (2003) Fires
Joshua Wurman, Center for Severe Weather Research, Boulder, CO; and S. Weygandt
Poster PDF (958.0 kB)
In the late summer of 2002 a fire occurred in the foothills of northern Colorado, northwest of Lyons. A mobile DOW radar was deployed near this fire and measured air motions in and near the fire. This was a test of the feasibility of using mobile radars to characterize the fire environment and plume structure possibly leading to observation-based initializations of mesoscale fire weather models. Very strong updrafts were observed in the plumes above the fires. It was possible to operate in the mountanous fire environment and collect volumetric data. Preliminary results will be presented.

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