Smoke Emission and Transport Modelling Research Report 102 Martin Cope, Sunhee Lee, Mick Meyer, Fabienne Reisen, Camila Trindade, Andrew Sullivan and Nic Surawski, Alan Wain, David Smith, Beth Ebert, Christopher Weston, Luba Volkova, Kevin Tolhurst, Thomas Duff, Sean Walsh, Nigel Tapper, Sarah Harris, Chris Rudiger, Alex Holmes, Musa Kilinc, Clare Paton-Walsh, Elise-Andree Guerette, Maximilien Desservettaz, Grant Edwards, Katrina Macsween and Dean Howard May 2019 Acknowledgements We would like to acknowledge the great support of Liam Fogarty, Elizabeth Ashman and Natalie Tostovrsnik from DELWP for managing the many useful introductions and discussions with personnel from DELWP, the CFA and more broadly within EMV. Thank you also for helping to smooth the many logistical challenges associated with a project of this complexity. We would also like to acknowledge the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage and the Victorian Environment Protection Authority for the provision of air quality and emissions inventory data sets. The Tasmanian and South Australian EPAs also kindly provided air quality data sets. Thank-you Grant Williamson (University of Tasmania) for processing the Tasmanian air quality data. Project Team CSIRO Oceans & Atmosphere: Martin Cope, Sunhee Lee, Mick Meyer, Project design and lead, Modelling Fabienne Reisen, Camilla Trindade framework, emission characterisation CSIRO Land & Water: Andrew Sullivan and Nic Surawski Pyrotron experimental burns, fire behaviour Bureau of Meteorology: Alan Wain, David Smith and Beth Ebert Smoke forecast modelling University of Melbourne: Christopher Weston, Luba Volkova Fuel load mapping Kevin Tolhurst, Thomas Duff, Sean Walsh Fire behaviour modelling Monash University: Nigel Tapper, Sarah Harris, Chris Rudiger, Fire radiative power and heat flux Alex Holmes, Musa Kilinc Wollongong University: Clare Paton-Walsh, Elise-Andree Guerette, Emission characterisation Maximilien Desservettaz Macquarie University: Grant Edwards, Katrina Macsween and Mercury Dean Howard © The State of Victoria Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning 2016 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. You are free to re-use the work under that licence, on the condition that you credit the State of Victoria as author. The licence does not apply to any images, photographs or branding, including the Victorian Coat of Arms, the Victorian Government logo and the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) logo. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Printed by CSIRO, Aspendale, Victoria. ISBN 978-1-76077-455-4 (print) ISBN 978-1-76077-455-4 (pdf) Disclaimer This publication may be of assistance to you but the State of Victoria and its employees do not guarantee that the publication is without flaw of any kind or is wholly appropriate for your particular purposes and therefore disclaims all liability for any error, loss or other consequence which may arise from you relying on any information in this publication. Contents List of Acronyms ............................................................................................................................................. 5 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................... 8 Part I Modelling system design and knowledge gaps ............................................................................... 10 Part II Addressing the knowledge gaps ...................................................................................................... 13 Fuel load maps ............................................................................................................................................... 13 Fire behaviour: How coarse fuel loads affect fire behaviour .................................................................... 15 Emission factors ............................................................................................................................................ 17 Laboratory measurements............................................................................................................................ 17 Emissions in the field .................................................................................................................................... 17 Plume emission factors from peat/organic soils ....................................................................................... 23 Emission of mercury compounds and impacts on people ....................................................................... 25 Emission ratios and emission factors from CSIRO Pyrotron experiment ............................................... 25 Firefighters exposure to mercury during prescribed burns ..................................................................... 27 Population exposure to mercury emitted during fires ............................................................................... 27 Fire Radiative Power (FRP), Fire Radiative Energy (FRE) and Their Potential Role in Smoke Transport Modelling. ..................................................................................................................................... 29 Part III Modelling system components- ....................................................................................................... 31 Tier 1. Ensemble fire weather forecasts out to 10 days ............................................................................ 31 The Regional Air Quality Prediction System for Tier 2 and 3 applications ............................................. 35 Fire behaviour modelling .............................................................................................................................. 37 Integration of fire prediction and smoke modelling ................................................................................... 37 Model development ....................................................................................................................................... 38 Prediction uncertainty and model limitations............................................................................................. 39 Key outcomes and findings .......................................................................................................................... 40 Smoke Emissions modelling ........................................................................................................................ 40 Part IV Case studies ...................................................................................................................................... 43 2015 Lancefield-Cobaw fire (Tier 2 modelling) ........................................................................................... 43 Emissions ....................................................................................................................................................... 43 Plume transport ............................................................................................................................................. 44 Verification ..................................................................................................................................................... 46 Analysis .......................................................................................................................................................... 48 2016 Tasmanian fires .................................................................................................................................... 49 Emissions ....................................................................................................................................................... 51 Plume transport ............................................................................................................................................. 53 Verification of the PM2.5- near field .............................................................................................................. 53 Analysis .......................................................................................................................................................... 59 2016 Hindleton - Granya Gap Rd (Tier 3 modelling) .................................................................................. 60 Planned Burn Simulator ................................................................................................................................ 60 Emissions ....................................................................................................................................................... 61 Analysis .......................................................................................................................................................... 61 Smoke Emission and Transport Modelling 1 Research Report 102 Part V Prototype to operational system ...................................................................................................... 64 Part VI Future ................................................................................................................................................. 65 Social media intelligence .............................................................................................................................. 65 Remote sensing intelligence .......................................................................................................................