1. Introduction¶
Welcome to the Community Fire Behavior Model (CFBM) User’s Guide!
CFBM is a cutting-edge tool designed to simulate the evolution of wildland fires. It leverages the Earth System Modeling Framework (ESMF) and supports both idealized or offline fire spread simulations, as well as coupling with atmospheric models such as WRF or the Univied Forecast System (UFS) atmospheric (FV3) components.The fire model relies on wind and other near-surface variables from the atmospheric component to propagate fires. In turn, it provides feedback to the atmospheric component by delivering heat and moisture fluxes generated by the fire. Additionally, the model releases smoke, which can be advected and diffused as a tracer by the atmospheric component.
CFBM draws from the proven capabilities of Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF-Fire) version 4.3.3, yet continues to expand and evolve to meet the demands of both research and operational communities. This documentation serves as a practical guide for setting up and running simulations using CFBM.
1.1. References¶
Domingo Muñoz-Esparza, Branko Kosović, Pedro A. Jiménez, and Janice L. Coen. An accurate fire-spread algorithm in the weather research and forecasting model using the level-set method. J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst., 2018. doi:10.1002/2017MS001108.
J A Sethian. A fast marching level set method for monotonically advancing fronts. P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 1996. doi:10.1073/pnas.93.4.159.
Pedro Angel Jimenez y Munoz, Maria Frediani, Masih Eghdami, Daniel Rosen, Michael Kavulich, and and Timothy W. Juliano. The community fire behavior model for coupled fire-atmosphere modeling: implementation in the unified forecast system. Geosci. Model Dev., 2024. doi:10.5194/gmd-2024-124.
