Abstract
Modeling Lightning-Ignited Fires in the Great Smoky Mountains Using FARSITE
Track: Forestry, Wildlife, and Fisheries Management
Author
Since the early 1900's, the spread of wildfires across the United States has been determined as hazardous and therefore the fires were suppressed. During recent decades, however, scientists and resource managers have accepted that fires benefit certain animal and plant species. Today many federal land managers implement Wildland Fire Use (WFU), where some naturally ignited fires are not suppressed. Our aim is to simulate fire spread in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina using the FARSITE program, and to compare the simulated fires to actual WFU fires that have occurred over the last decade. With ArcGIS 9.3, we were able to extract topographic data from a raster image of the Great Smoky Mountains using the Spatial Analyst extension, which is needed in order for the simulation to run in FARSITE. The data from the FARSITE simulation is extracted and compared to a real fire on ArcGIS 9.3
Bethany Munoz
TAMU Geography Department
PMB G114
2 Commons Lobby
College Station, Texas 77840-9500
United States
Phone: 214-629-4669
E-mail: muno1085@tamu.edu