Fire Growth Maps for the 1988 Greater Yellowstone Area Fires
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
United States Department of Agriculture Fire Growth Maps Forest Service Intermountain for the 1988 Greater Research Station General Technical Report INT-304 Yellowstone Area Fires January 1994 Richard C. Rothermel Roberta A. Hartford Carolyn H. Chase THE AUTHORS organizations. Without their support this comprehen- sive project would not have been possible. RICHARD C. ROTHERMEL is a senior scientist at the lntermountain Fire Sciences Laboratory in Missoula, The Denver office of the National Park Service, for its MT. He served 26 years as Project Leader of the Fire assistance in installing hardware and software, GRASS Behavior Research Work Unit there. Rothermel has and UNlX training, preparing data tapes compatible degrees from the University of Washington (B.S. with our computer system, and continued support in aeronautical engineering, 1953) and Colorado State problem resolution. University (MS. mechanical engineering, 1971). He The Boise office of the National Park Service, for has published and lectured extensively both in the lending its work station to start the project before United States and abroad. His most notable contribu- purchase of our machine. tion has been the development of a fire spread model Yellowstone National Park, for lending the wall map that has been used as the basis for the National Fire assembled at park headquarters in Mammoth during Danger Rating System and several other systems the summer of 1988, preparing additional data for that require an estimate of fire behavior. Rothermel transfer to our system, helping locate missing data, and is working with scientists in Australia and Canada to accepting the responsibility to distribute the electronic develop models for the next generation of fire behavior data. and fire danger systems. Andy Norman from the Bridger-Teton National Forest for interpreting fire growth on the Huck and Mink Fires ROBERTA A. HARTFORD is a forester at the lnter- and providing maps of those fires. mountain Fire Sciences Laboratory in Missoula, MT. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Depart- She began working at the Fire Lab in 1968, assisting ment of the Interior for partially funding this work from with studies on the chemical and physical properties of the grant for Greater Yellowstone Area postfire re- fuels. During the early 1970's she also worked season- sponse studies. ally in fuel inventory and taught high school science. The GIs Laboratory at Central Washington Univer- Since 1976 she has remained at the Fire Lab where sity, Ellensburg, for digitizing the initial data from the she has been involved in studies of fuels and fuel bed headquarters wall map. properties, smoldering combustion, and fire behavior of both laboratory and wi!d!and fires. Recent work includes studies in the use of satellite remote sensing RESEARCH SUMMARY to assess fire potential in wildland vegetation and the The growth of the 1988 fires in the Greater use of geographic information systems to document Yellowstone Area from June 14 to October 1 has been wildfire growth. She has a B.A. degree in zoology digitized and displayed in the form of daily fire growth from the University of Montana in Missoula and an maps. A geographic information system (GIs) was MS. degree in forestry there. used to process the data for distribution and analysis. CAROLYN H. CHASE is a mathematician stationed The fire record integrates information and data from a at the lntermountain Fire Sciences Laboratory. She variety of sources, including daily infrared photography received her B.A. degree in mathematics from the flights, satellite imagery, ground and aerial reconnais- University of Montana in 1969. Chase began working sance, command center intelligence, and the personal at the Fire Lab in 1978; she is a member of the sys- recollections of fire behavior observers. Using GRASS tems development and application team. Her current GIs software, fire position was digitized from topo- work includes integration of geographic information graphic maps to construct a file of daily fire location in system technology for the next generation of fire vector format. The vector file was converted to raster danger and fire behavior prediction systems. format for further analysis. The data base is available in electronic form. A summary of the growth of the fire and points of interest throughout the summer is included. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors gratefully acknowledge the valuable assistance of many individuals in the following Cover: The cover shows the daily growth of the 1988 Yellowstone Fires. Each color represents one day's growth. Intermountain Research Station 324 25th Street Ogden, UT 84401 Fire Growth Ma~sfor the 1988 Greater ell ow stone Area Fires Richard C. Rothermel Roberta A. Hartford Carolyn H. Chase 1 INTRODUCTION with red indicating growth on the last day of the week. These data are available in electronic format. In the summer of 1988, Yellowstone National Park Appendix B describes how to obtain the data set and and adjoining areas within the National Forests, gives details about file contents, formats, and sizes. commonly referred to as the Greater Yellowstone One of the key elements of this work has been a II Area (fig. I), experienced the most extensive forest comprehensive effort to resolve conflicting or incom- fires seen in the Western States since the great plete data and to develop maps accurately depicting Northwest fires of 1910. As the summer progressed the growth of the fires. Considerable thought and and the fires continued to spread unabated, it be- care were given to preparation 6f the fire growth came apparent that unprecedented opportunities for map, but there are many potential sources of error; studying large-fire behavior were at hand. However, the data should not be considered to be the absolute the very size, intensity, and remoteness of the fires, truth. Boundaries, streams, and sites used for refer- as well as widespread smoke, made personal obser- ence at map production scales were taken from a va- vation and mapping all but impossible. Fortunately, riety of sources and were digitized at a variety of there was a strong effort to map fire progress for use scales. These results should not be considered for in strategic and tactical fire planning. determining legal questions such as whether or when National Parks and National Forests forming the a fire burned a particular feature. If readers have Greater Yellowstone Area include Yellowstone Na- additional data or corrections they feel should be in- tional Park, Grand Teton National Park, and por- cluded in the data set, contact the authors with the tions of the Custer, Targhee, Bridger-Teton, Gallatin, details. All suggested additions or corrections will be Beaverhead, and Shoshone National Forests. Major evaluated early in 1995 and published if warranted. fires included~~ ~ ~~ in the~ data~~~~ set are the North Fork- Wolf Lake, Fan, Hellroaring, Storm Creek, Clover- MAP PREPARATION Mist, Huck, Mink and the Snake Complex, consist- ing of the Falls, Red, and Shoshone Fires. The initial data were taken from a large wall map A research effort was initiated soon after the fires assembled from Department of the Interior, U.S. were over to reconstruct the fire behavior and the Geological Survey quadrangle maps (quads) at Yel- conditions that produced 3 months of large-fire lowstone National Park Headquarters at Mammoth. growth. The purpose was to put together a data set The location of the fires was recorded on this map, suitable for analyzing large-fire growth. Of particu- to the extent possible, each day throughout the sum- lar importance to further study are growth progres- mer. Figure 2 shows quad coverage over the fire sion, rates of spread, and relation of fire progress to area. The data were obtained primarily from air- weather and terrain. craft using infrared (IR) scanners. Two aircraft he GRASS (U.S. Army Construction Engineering were available until late August, when one was sent Research Laboratory 1988) geographic information to other fires. Unfortunately, the largest fire growth system (GIs) software was used to store and orga- was taking place at this time, and one aircraft could nize the data. The growth layer produced by the not cover all of the active fire perimeter in one night GIs contains polygons made up of perimeters repre- of flying. Areas on the Snake Complex in the south, senting the fire position, each with the single at- the Clover-Mist Fire in the eastern section, and the tribute of date. A complete set of fire growth maps North Fork-Wolf Lake Fire were not well mapped is shown in appendix A. Those maps show the daily late in the summer. fire growth summarized by week. Each color indi- The majority of daily fire positions on the head- cates a different day's growth. Fire growth previous quarters map couldbe verified with IR overlays or to the current week is shown in black, lakes and with chronology information (USDA.USDI 1988). streams are blue; roads are brown. Daily colors Daily fire growth prior to centralized mapping (and grade from "cool" early in the week, through "warm," between IR flights) was reconstructed with the help Figure 1-This figure shows the final perimeters of the 1988 fires in the Greater Yellowstone Area. The colored boxes indicate areas covered by the maps in append~xA. Yellowstone National Park is outlined in black. Mount Mount Mount Cowen Douglas Wood Crown Mount Cutoff Cooke Bune Miner Gardiner Wallace Mountain w . I Tepee Mount Tower Abiathar Pilot Beartooth Deep Creek Holmes Mammoth Junction Butte Lake m . w w m m . I Dead West Madison Norris Canyon Pelican Sunlight Indian Yellowstone Junction Junction Village Peak w . Buffalo Old West Lake Faithful Thumb Peak B W 8 W W Grassy Lake- Huckleberry- Mount Two Ocean Reservoir Mountain ~anmck- Pass w Figure 2-Names and locations of U.S.