FARSITE MODEL and ITS APPLICATION

Outline:
Introduction of FARSITE program Fire Risk Mitigation in Strawberry Canyon FARSITE model demonstration with sample data

Portions of this document include intellectual property of Systems for Environmental Management and are used herein by permission. 1 Copyright (c) 1995, 1996, 1997 Mark A. Finney. All Rights Reserved.

About FARSITE I. Introduction of FARSITE program Fire Area Simulator

Focus on data preparation

FARSITE Description
FARSITE is a stand-alone fire growth simulation model. It is used to simulate wildland fire growth and behavior under complex conditions of terrain, fuels, and weather. FARSITE incorporates models for surface fire, crown fire, spotting, fire acceleration, and fuel moisture. FARSITE requires the support of a Geographic Information System (GIS) to manage and provide spatial data for the simulation (Arc Info, Arc Veiw, or GRASS). FARSITE produces maps of fire growth and behavior in vector and raster formats.
URL: http://www.montana.com/sem/public_html/farsite/farsite2.html
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How to Get FARSITE?

FARSITE download site (2.8Mb), need 6.5Mb on disk http://www. montana.com/sem/public_html/far site/farsite2.html User s Guide Download http://www.fs.fed.us/fire/planning/nist/farsit3 xug.pdf
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Input Files
Required Input Files 1. a landscape file (.LCP)
Elevation Derived from Slope DEM Aspect Fuel Model Canopy Cover

Input Files (continued)

Optional Input Files: 1. a fuel model conversion file (.CNV), 2. a custom fuel model file (.FMD) that specifies models 14-50. 3. a fire acceleration file .ACL that specifies fuelspecific fire acceleration constants

2. at least 1 weather file (.WTR), 3. at least 1 wind file (.WND), 4. an adjustment file (.ADJ) for spread rate adjustments, 5. an initial fuel moisture file (.FMS)
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Generate Landscape File (.LCP)

Tips: ASCII Grid format of all five inputs Header files must be exactly the same, e.g. ncol, nrow, xllcorner, yllcorner, cellsize, etc.

Examples of ASCII Grid

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Data Contents and Units

Data Type elevation slope aspect Default Metric:meters Degrees 1-25
(pre-GRASS v4.0)

Fuel Model
Anderson, Hal E. 1982. Aids to determining fuel models for estimating fire behavior. USDA Forest Service General Technical Report INT122. 22 p. Description Grass Pine/Grass Tall Grass Tall Chaparral Brush Dormant Brush Rough Hardwood/Lodgepole Pine Mixed Conifer Light Mixed Conifer Medium

Alternate English:feet Percent Degrees

(GRID and GRASS post-v4.0)

fuel No Custom Models canopy cover Categories: 1-4

No Conversions Req. Percent

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15 28 97 98 99

Light Slash Medium Slash Heavy Slash Plantation/Burned last 15 years Desert Urban Agricultural Lands Water Barren/Rock/Other
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Canopy Cover
The canopy cover theme is necessary for computing shading and wind reduction factors for all fuel models. Canopy cover is the horizontal percentage of area covered by tree crowns at the stand level. Coverage units can be categories (1-4) or percentage values (0-100). Categories are assumed to be the following: 1: 1-20% 2: 21-50% 3: 50-80% 4: 81-100% with zero cover specified by: 0: 0%, or 99: 0%
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Weather Input File (.WTR)

space delimited ASCII format Template: Month Day Precip Hour1 Hour2 Temp1 Temp2 Humid1 Humid2 Elevation Example: 7 15 30 500 1300 7 16 0 400 1300 7 17 0 500 1300 7 18 0 500 1400 7 19 0 400 1400

49 53 56 54 52

70 77 77 75 76

98 91 62 59 60

38 8400 26 8400 25 8400 20 8400 16 8400

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Wind Stream Inputs (.WND)

Template: Month Day Hour Speed Direction CloudCover Example: 7 15 0 2 359 0 7 15 100 2 3 0 7 15 200 5 346 0 7 15 300 3 340 0

Adjustment Factors (.ADJ)

Rate of spread adjustment factors allow the user to use experienced judgment or local data to tune the simulation to observed or actual fire spread patterns Template FuelMod AdjustmentFactor Example 1 0.5 2 0.5 3 0.5 4 0.25
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Initial Fuel Moistures (.FMS)

The fuel moistures at the beginning o f the simulation must be set for each fuel type. These fuel moistures are required to begin the process of calculating site specific dead fuel moistures at each time step throughout the simulation. Template: FuelMod 1Hour 10Hour 100Hour LiveH LiveW Example: 1 100 19 20 125 125 2 10 19 20 125 125 3 10 19 20 125 125 LiveH and LiveW indicate live woody and live herbaceous fuels, just like BEHAVE.
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The general procedure for running FARSITE

I. preliminary data acquisition or production, II. starting FARSITE and interactively specifying these data files, III. selecting options for the simulation and for outputs from the simulation, IV. running the model, V. printing/saving any Windows with data of interest.
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Fire Risk Mitigation

UC Berkeley acknowledges the need for fire-risk reduction measures in Strawberry Canyon as a means to protect adjacent communities and reduce their own liability.

II. Fire Risk Mitigation in Strawberry Canyon

Limitation - data integration and quality - costs and public opinion FARSITE (Fire Area Simulator) Model was applied to evaluate the determine the best management strategies.
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Landscape File
Elevation Fuel Model

Fire Simulation

Slope

Canopy Cover

Landscape File
Aspect

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Conclusion: DFPZ vs. Canyon-wide

Original proposed 200-meter DFPZ does not work Considering Fire Risk, Cost, Social Values, benefit/cost ratio, etc., Canyon-wide manipulation is recommended Defensible Fuel Profile Zone

Project Review
Visit project web site http://wwwlaep.ced.berkeley.edu/classes/radke_materia ls/materials/221-98hi/la221-ay/index.html

No Plan

Canyon-wide Stand Based Treatment

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Step 1: Derive Elevation, Slope, Aspect from DEM data III. FARSITE Model Demonstration with Sample Data

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Step 2: Obtain Canopy Cover and Fuel Model Grid

Fuel Model

Step 3: GRID to ASCII Conversion

Vegetation Map digitizing Vector to grid

Canopy Cover

High resolution air photo rectification Supervised classification

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Bring Results in to ArcGIS

Step 4: Generate Landscape file Step 5: Finish Input with weather, wind, fuel moisture, adjustment, etc. Step 6: Set parameters Step 7: Set ignition Step 8: Set output option Step 9: Run simulation Step 10: Output results into GIS to further process
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Exercise:
Please download the FARSITE program, and use the provided sample data to practice the tutorial on page 14-16 of the FARSITE User Guide http://www.fs.fed.us/fire/planning/nist/farsit3xug.pdf

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