2016 horse river wildfire in alberta ... - building resilience · 2016 horse river wildfire in...
TRANSCRIPT
![Page 1: 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta ... - Building Resilience · 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions October 25, 2016 Special Session](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022053019/5f27253e6f574162470dfde1/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions
October 25, 2016
Special Session
Wildland Fire Canada Conference 2016
Building Resilience
Dave Finn, Bill de Groot, Mike Flannigan, Kevin Keats, Paul Kruger, Mark Newman, Kevin Robb, Tom Schiks, Dave
Schroeder, Maria Sharpe, Dan Thompson, Cordy Tymstra,
Amber Unger, Ellen Whitman, Mike Wotton, Jinkai Zhang
![Page 2: 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta ... - Building Resilience · 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions October 25, 2016 Special Session](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022053019/5f27253e6f574162470dfde1/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
2
Outline – Fire Weather
• Surface weather • FWI Indices • Upper atmoshere maps • Vertical structure • Synoptic features • Pyrocumulonimbus
![Page 3: 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta ... - Building Resilience · 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions October 25, 2016 Special Session](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022053019/5f27253e6f574162470dfde1/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
3
Forest Fires – 3 Ingredients
• Fuel – type, loading, moisture, structure, chemical composition etc.
• Ignition - human and lightning • Weather - temperature, precipitation
atmospheric moisture and wind; upper atmospheric conditions (blocking ridges), sunshine
![Page 4: 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta ... - Building Resilience · 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions October 25, 2016 Special Session](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022053019/5f27253e6f574162470dfde1/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
Hot, dry and windy…..
Day Temp Min RH Max RH Prec Direction
of max
Gust
Max.
Gust
°C
% % mm degrees Km/h
May 1 25 15 64 0 250 33
May 2 27.4 22 77 0 Missing ~31
May 3 32.8 13 58 0 230 46 (72)
May 4 31.9 14 58 0 290 69
May 5 18.8 17 40 0 300 48
May 6 19.2 15 60 0 290 41
4
![Page 5: 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta ... - Building Resilience · 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions October 25, 2016 Special Session](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022053019/5f27253e6f574162470dfde1/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
5
Day FFMC DMC DC ISI BUI FWI
May 1 92 32 351 9.5 53 22
May 2 93 38 359 8.7 60 22
May 3 96 45 367 15.3 69 35
May 4 96 52 375 11.4 77 30
May 5 94 55 380 12.2 81 33
May 6 94 59 386 11.6 86 35
Dry and Dry
![Page 6: 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta ... - Building Resilience · 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions October 25, 2016 Special Session](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022053019/5f27253e6f574162470dfde1/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
![Page 7: 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta ... - Building Resilience · 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions October 25, 2016 Special Session](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022053019/5f27253e6f574162470dfde1/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
7
Low Level Jet
![Page 8: 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta ... - Building Resilience · 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions October 25, 2016 Special Session](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022053019/5f27253e6f574162470dfde1/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
8
![Page 9: 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta ... - Building Resilience · 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions October 25, 2016 Special Session](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022053019/5f27253e6f574162470dfde1/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
9
![Page 10: 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta ... - Building Resilience · 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions October 25, 2016 Special Session](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022053019/5f27253e6f574162470dfde1/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
Surface Weather Map- 3 May 1500 MDT
10
![Page 11: 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta ... - Building Resilience · 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions October 25, 2016 Special Session](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022053019/5f27253e6f574162470dfde1/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
This series of images are all 375-m VIIRS I-band 4 (3.74
μm), and each has been scaled so that warmer =
brighter and the hot spots show up as the bright white pixels
![Page 12: 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta ... - Building Resilience · 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions October 25, 2016 Special Session](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022053019/5f27253e6f574162470dfde1/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
Same as the last image, but zoomed in
over Fort McMurray. The next few
slides will be over this same domain.
The fire was first detectable via GOES-15 at 2230 UTC on 1 May (a few hours after this image)
![Page 13: 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta ... - Building Resilience · 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions October 25, 2016 Special Session](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022053019/5f27253e6f574162470dfde1/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
![Page 14: 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta ... - Building Resilience · 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions October 25, 2016 Special Session](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022053019/5f27253e6f574162470dfde1/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
![Page 15: 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta ... - Building Resilience · 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions October 25, 2016 Special Session](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022053019/5f27253e6f574162470dfde1/html5/thumbnails/15.jpg)
![Page 16: 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta ... - Building Resilience · 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions October 25, 2016 Special Session](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022053019/5f27253e6f574162470dfde1/html5/thumbnails/16.jpg)
![Page 17: 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta ... - Building Resilience · 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions October 25, 2016 Special Session](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022053019/5f27253e6f574162470dfde1/html5/thumbnails/17.jpg)
![Page 18: 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta ... - Building Resilience · 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions October 25, 2016 Special Session](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022053019/5f27253e6f574162470dfde1/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
![Page 19: 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta ... - Building Resilience · 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions October 25, 2016 Special Session](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022053019/5f27253e6f574162470dfde1/html5/thumbnails/19.jpg)
![Page 20: 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta ... - Building Resilience · 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions October 25, 2016 Special Session](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022053019/5f27253e6f574162470dfde1/html5/thumbnails/20.jpg)
![Page 21: 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta ... - Building Resilience · 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions October 25, 2016 Special Session](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022053019/5f27253e6f574162470dfde1/html5/thumbnails/21.jpg)
Pyrocumulonimbus
• Extreme and erratic
fire behaviour including rapid fire spread
• Lightning
• New lightning fire
starts due to the pyrocb
21
![Page 22: 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta ... - Building Resilience · 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions October 25, 2016 Special Session](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022053019/5f27253e6f574162470dfde1/html5/thumbnails/22.jpg)
Fort McMurray Fire… by the Numbers
• Ignition – May 1st at 1600 • Hot, dry and windy • 90,000 people evacuated • Over 2400 structures
burned • ~590,000 ha • Insurable losses $3.58
Billion; costliest natural disaster in Canadian history
• Negative impact on National GDP
Photo credit: Globe and Mail
22
![Page 23: 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta ... - Building Resilience · 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions October 25, 2016 Special Session](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022053019/5f27253e6f574162470dfde1/html5/thumbnails/23.jpg)
■ Hot, dry and windy
■ FFMC at the 100th percentile
■ Upper ridge – unstable atmosphere
■ Inversion breakdown
■ Cold front
■ Night time burning
■ Pyrocumulonimbus
Summary
23
![Page 24: 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta ... - Building Resilience · 2016 Horse River Wildfire in Alberta, Canada: Contributing environmental conditions October 25, 2016 Special Session](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022053019/5f27253e6f574162470dfde1/html5/thumbnails/24.jpg)
https://www.ualberta.ca/~wcwfs/
http://www.ualberta.ca/~flanniga/
@westernpartners
Photo credit: Dennis
Quintilio