@conference {bnh-3898, title = {A new quantitative smoke forecasting system for Victoria}, booktitle = {AFAC17}, year = {2017}, month = {09/2017}, publisher = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, organization = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Sydney}, abstract = {

Smoke dispersion is a key concern for Government agencies. Government has a responsibility to protect community health in response to smoke events and to minimise the impact of smoke from planned burning.\  To inform community warnings and planned burn management, quality information is needed to support evidence-based decision making.

The Bureau of Meteorology has operated the HYSPLIT smoke dispersion system for use by fire and land management agencies for around 15 years. Recently DELWP funded research to improve smoke emission and transport modelling in Victoria. This project developed a new multi-tiered quantitative smoke prediction system which is a significant step forward compared with the old system.\  It applies recent observations of Victorian smoke emissions and atmospheric chemistry (as embodied in CSIRO{\textquoteright}s Chemical Transport Model) with the increased numerical capability in ensemble and high resolution weather modelling of the Bureau{\textquoteright}s ACCESS Numerical Weather Prediction suite.

The new smoke forecasting system has 3 tiers; Tier 1: 10-day ensemble forecasts of fire weather and fire danger indices to assist decisions on burn scheduling, Tier 2: 3-day forecasts of ambient air quality and smoke concentration from existing fires to provide background conditions for burns, and Tier 3: 1-day high resolution forecasts of smoke for planned prescribed burns to support go/no-go decisions.

In this presentation we will demonstrate the improved user interface for the smoke dispersion system and provide examples of output for each of the 3 forecast tiers. We will also describe the methodology for verifying the system output, including initial verification results. Finally areas of potential future work will be discussed, including how other jurisdictions can be involved so that this can become a national smoke dispersion system.

}, author = {Monica Long and Alan Wain and Cope, ME and Beth Ebert and Maree Carroll and Kevin Parkyn and Natalie Tostovrsnik} } @article {BF-4282, title = {A comparison of the fire weather characteristics of the Melbourne dust storm (1983) and Black Saturday (2009): a high-resolution ACCESS case study}, journal = {20th International Congress on Modelling and Simulation}, year = {2013}, month = {12/2013}, pages = {167-172}, chapter = {167}, abstract = {We present the results of high-resolution simulations of the fire weather over Melbourne during its notorious dust storm on 8 February 1983. The simulations were performed using the Australian Community Climate and Earth-System Simulator (ACCESS), and involved a sequence of nested model runs starting with a global model run initialised with an ERA-Interim reanalysis initial condition. The ACCESS model is used at the Bureau of Meteorology for operational numerical weather prediction, but is used here in research mode at resolutions much finer than those currently used operationally. The day of the dust storm saw the passage of a significant cool change across Victoria, with many similarities in the simulations to that of Black Saturday (7 February 2009), against which we compare it. Wind changes such as these two can have a significant (and dangerous) impact on the behaviour of bushfires in southeast Australia, and their prediction forms an important component of fire weather prediction in this part of the country. While the wind change on 8 February 1983 was accompanied by some fire activity, that activity was much less than the major fire activity which accompanied the significant wind change eight days later on Ash Wednesday (16 February 1983). Why the dust storm wind change was not associated with severe fires, while those on Ash Wednesday and Black Saturday were, is a challenging question. Catastrophic fires are quite rare, whereas significant fire weather events that could potentially lead to catastrophic fires (if the non-meteorological prerequisites were to fall into place) are much more common and their study can lead to further understanding of the fire events.}, keywords = {Ash Wednesday, Black Saturday, Fire weather, Melbourne{\textquoteright}s dust storm, numerical weather prediction}, url = {http://www.mssanz.org.au/modsim2013/A3/fawcett.pdf}, author = {Robert Fawcett and Alan Wain and W. Thurston and Jeffrey Kepert and KJ Tory} } @book {BF-2393, title = {Developments in Environmental SciencesWildland Fires and Air PollutionChapter 23 Managing Smoke from Wildfires and Prescribed Burning in Southern Australia}, volume = {8}, year = {2008}, pages = {535 - 550}, publisher = {Elsevier}, organization = {Elsevier}, abstract = {In Australia the responsibility for management of forests and other public lands rests largely with state governments, and multiple government agencies may be involved in fire management. Whether resulting from wildfire, fuel reduction, or silvicultural operations, biomass burning often stimulates community concerns about hazards from fine particulates and chemical compounds contained in smoke. Management practices and community perceptions of smoke from biomass burning differ from region to region according to social and environmental factors. Recognition of the need for a response to concerns has led to the development of a smoke management research program within the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre, in conjunction with fire and land management agencies and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (the Bureau). This program aims to assist land management planning by predicting where smoke from scheduled burns would be transported, thus providing the opportunity to avoid burning in situations where there is potential for adverse community impact. The primary tool provided is a dispersion model forecast using input from the Bureau{\textquoteright}s operational mesoscale numerical weather prediction (NWP) models. Decision tools are applied in a similar manner for prescribed burning and wildfires and have been used by agencies to provide community advice and to avoid smoke hazards during aircraft operations. We investigated strategies used by land management agencies to minimize community impact of smoke from prescribed burns, and studied the way in which the dispersion model forecasts are integrated into their decision support systems. Included are details of HYbrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory{\textquoteright}s (HYSPLIT) configuration, several examples of its use in prescribed and wildfire events, and the research direction being pursued to improve both the quality of the dispersion forecasts and to enhance the use of these forecasts in agency planning.}, doi = {10.1016/S1474-8177\%2808\%2900023-5}, author = {Alan Wain and Graham A. Mills and Lachlan W. McCaw and Brown, T} } @article {BF-1092, title = {Analysis of near-surface transport from an oil storage facility at Hovea, Western Australia {\textendash} a year of dispersion modelling.}, year = {2007}, note = {46pp}, month = {9/28/2007}, institution = {Consultancy Report to Arc Energy Pty Ltd}, author = {Alan Wain and Graham A. Mills} } @article {BF-1091, title = {The Australian Smoke Management Forecast System}, volume = {No 117}, year = {2006}, note = {54pp}, month = {5/18/2006}, url = {http://cawcr.gov.au/bmrc/pubs/researchreports/RR117.pdf}, author = {Alan Wain and Graham A. Mills} } @article {BF-1090, title = {Modelling the King Island bushfire smoke}, number = {55}, year = {2006}, month = {9/20/2006}, pages = {93-104}, author = {Hess, GD and KJ Tory and Lee, S and Alan Wain and Cope, ME} }