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Los Angeles fire department staff are reviewing a new fire prediction tool powered by supercomputers.
San Diego Supercomputer Center
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San Diego Supercomputer Center
Los Angeles fire department staff are reviewing a new fire prediction tool powered by supercomputers.
San Diego Supercomputer Center
The deadly flames burning in California have highlighted the crucial role of evacuation. In the moments following the start of a fire, firefighters must predict where a fire will spread to save lives.
Now, California firefighters are using a powerful new tool: supercomputers.
Computer servers, which collect real-time data from satellites and weather stations, provide predictions of forest fire behavior in the coming hours.
These predictions could help fire departments add crucial minutes to evacuation orders. The campfire has spread at a terrifying speed, along with other recent fires fueled by extreme weather and global warming.
"What's abnormal is the new normal," says Jonathan Cox, Division Manager at CalFire. "It's something that 30-year-old firefighters have never seen."
The Comet supercomputer at the San Diego Supercomputer Center.
San Diego Supercomputer Center
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San Diego Supercomputer Center
The Comet supercomputer at the San Diego Supercomputer Center.
San Diego Supercomputer Center
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Today, fire agencies predict the behavior of a fire by analyzing weather conditions, terrain and fuel moisture, and drawing on the experience of several decades of fire analysts.
"It's an inexact science that needs to be implemented in the midst of an emergency," says Cox. "It can be extremely difficult to get a clear idea of the direction of a fire."
Many fire safety agencies also use basic software on laptops capable of producing fire splashes, which have been available for about a decade.
But in recent years, the availability of real-time fire data has exploded. NASA satellites provide detailed images of fire perimeters. Weather station, terrain cameras and aerial reconnaissance flights provide even more.
For this type of data, a supercomputer can be of great help.
"Our current computer is called Comet," says Ilkay Altintas, San Diego Supercomputer Center of San Diego. "Comet is 2.76 petaflops." It's about the same as two million smartphones.
The supercomputer has developed WIFIRE, a fire behavior model that builds on existing models and adds real-time data. It can run multiple simulations simultaneously, as soon as a fire breaks out.
"We can understand where will be the fire, its rate of spread, its direction for the next hours," Altintas said. "Having this information in a few minutes, in your hand, as quickly as possible, is very important."
CalFire has received supercomputer forecasts for the fire at Woolsey in Southern California. The agency says its use is still experimental, but this is part of a growing trend towards technology increasingly used in firefighting.
"The more we can get information and decisions based on technology, it's obviously the future," Cox said.
Yet he does not think that machines will replace human judgment.
"It's an additional way of making decisions, but I do not think it will ever replace the human factor because of the dynamics that accompany these fires," he said.
Predict erratic fires
Nevertheless, some current fire models do not accurately predict fires: those who create their own climate.
California firefighters saw it in July, fighting Carr's fire near Redding. It was "unpredictable", according to Calfire, who was spreading erratically.
He also produced a massive "fire tornado" with winds over 160 km / h. He claimed the life of fire inspector Jeremy Stoke of the Redding Fire Department.
"We have witnessed many fires mainly due to the winds created by the fire itself," said Janice Coen, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado.
In these fires "dominated by plumes", winds created by fire propel the fire forward. These winds can reach 50 miles at the time, even if the winds blowing to the outside can be much lower.
Current models of fire behavior do not take this into account in their forecasts.
"In some of the most destructive and important cases, they do not hold water," says Coen.
Coen is working on a computer model, called CAWFE, that simulates a fire-driven weather. She says that's promising, but the most difficult is to pass it on to fire agencies because adopting new technologies is risky for them.
"It is difficult to integrate new technologies in the fight against fires in particular," she said.
According to her, the potential is that communities in fire-exposed areas will be a little safer.
"I have a lot of hope that we can understand the fires and anticipate their behavior so that we can learn from them and avoid more disasters in the future," she said.
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