Data resolution effects on a coupled data driven system for forest fire propagation prediction

Abstract Every year, thousands of forest hectares are burned worldwide, causing important consequences on the atmosphere, biodiversity and economy. Proper prediction of the fire evolution allows to manage the fire fighting equipment properly. Therefore, it is crucial to use reliable and fast simulations in order to predict the evolution of the fire. WRF-SFIRE is a wildland fire simulator, which couples a meteorological model called Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) and a forest fire simulator, SFIRE reproducing the interaction between the propagation of the fire and the atmosphere evolution. The mesh resolution used to solve the atmosphere evolution has a deep impact in the prediction of small scale meteorological effects. At the same time, the ability of introducing these small scale meteorological events into the forest fire simulation implies enhancements in the quality of the data that drives the simulation. Therefore, better fire propagation predictions are obtained. However, this improvement can be affected by the instability of the problem to be solved. This paper states an accuracy study changing the mesh resolution when running WRF-SFIRE using as example a real case that took place in Catalonia (northeast of Spain) in 2005.