Chasing wildfires

First results have been published from 2022’s California Fire Dynamics Experiment (CalFiDE), a NOAA- and CIRES-led campaign to capture coordinated wildfire observations in real time. This video shows what it was like for researchers as they took unprecedented wildfire measurements on the ground and in the air. CalFiDE results could ultimately provide better forecasts for first responders on the ground who need to make quick decisions about firefighting strategy and evacuations, according to the researchers.

Read more about CalFiDE and the campaign's first results on the CIRES website:
https://cires.colorado.edu/news/first...

Footage and still imagery provided by Alan Brewer, Brian Carroll, Amanda Makowiecki, Richard Marchbanks, Nick Pawlento, and Michael Zucker.

Music: Final Girl by Jeremy Blake.

Video produced by Lauren Lipuma at CIRES.

Video transcript is below.

Alan Brewer: The big fire that we worked with that became the central point was the Mosquito Fire.

Alan Brewer: And as you're flying around the fire, the aircraft is actually feeling the inflows.

Alan Brewer: The pilots afterwards would talk about how they would feel themselves being pulled in towards the big ash cloud beside you and would have to really work to stay on track.

Alan Brewer: It's towering over you at 22,000 feet. And we were just flying alongside this sheer wall, measuring the winds as they're being sucked into this.

Alan Brewer: The energy was so high that it was busting up through the troposphere and into the stratosphere.

Max Holloway: CalFiDE was an interesting experiment 'cause we were running both a ground team based in a mobile Doppler Lidar in a pickup truck, and then also running an aircraft-based system.

Brian Carroll: If you have an active wildfire, you're trying to analyze it and predict what it's going to do as best you can. So you can fight it the next day.

Brian Carroll: Those types of predictions are from models, computer models most of the time. And there are certain processes that you need to understand of how is the fire going to spread? What emissions are you going to get from that?

Brian Carroll: CalFiDE is one of the first campaigns to give a really good look using the many mobile platforms that we had to measure those things. It'll improve our process understanding. And through that we'll be able to improve some of those prediction models.

Brian Carroll: So hopefully someday this kind of data could be used in real time to help inform firefighting efforts.

Max Holloway: Me and Brian were part of the ground team in the truck. So, a lot of our day was listening to what the aircraft flight plans were, and then trying to coordinate our drives to work with the flight crew.

Max Holloway: It was definitely the first time being in and behind the fire line.

Brian Carroll: And you're the whole time breathing in this really heavy smoke and visibility is very low.

Max Holloway: That one day, we're behind the fire line. We knew we were behind the line, but I think it was just smoky the whole time. And as we were coming out, the wind picked up… it moved some of the smoke out so we could see the fire line. And then there's like a flaming bat that hit the truck and it was, it was intense.

Brian Carroll: With these events, some of the communities you're driving around, you're experiencing what these people are experiencing. And you're seeing the impacts and the danger and the reality of it.

Brian Carroll: Just all of that stuff added a gravity to the situation that made me realize how important our measurements were.