Aplicação dos Modelos de Interação Atmosférica e de Incêndio Florestal BRAMS-SFIRE no sul de Portugal

Abstract

BRAMS-SFIRE is a new atmospheric modeling system with a fire spreading component developed at the Centro de Previsão de Tempo e Estudos Climáticos (CPTEC/INPE) in Brasil, in collaboration with the Instituto Mediterrâneo para a Agricultura, Ambiente e Desenvolvimento (MED) in Portugal. The present paper describes the incorporation of thefire model into the Brazilian development of the Regional Atmospheric Modelling System (BRAMS). The main objec-tives were to develop the coupling between an atmospheric and a spreading fire models which simulate the effects of atmospheric circulation over a wildfire and vice-versa. This tool is intended to help understand fire-landscape relation-ships in Mediterranean oak woodlands and evaluate the simulation results on a fine-scale in the Alentejo region's Mon-tado ecosystem. For this purpose, three grids of very high spatial resolution over three fires were configured with realistic surface characterization data and fuel model properties. One grid was placed at a fire in the plains and the others in the mountains to evaluate fire propagation types. This work demonstrates that this system consistently simulated the interaction between the fire, the fuel models, and the atmosphere, showing the fire changes the local circulation at the surface level, intensify wind currents, and changes the atmosphere structure.