@article {bnh-6642, title = {A report on WRF software development (preliminary)}, number = {539}, year = {2020}, month = {01/2020}, institution = {Bushfire \& Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Bushfire is one of the major natural hazards Australia encounters every year because of its dry weather and widespread bushlands. During the dry season, occurrence of simultaneous bushfires at different locations is quite common. The fire management authorities face challenges on deployment of resources (human and other logistics) properly to mitigate multiple bushfires. To prioritize, they depend on the modelling of real-time behaviours of the fire under consideration. Fire rate of spread (RoS) is one of the most important parameters that the authority wants to determine before proceeding to resource allocation. RoS during forest fire can be slowed by reduced sub-canopy wind. In operational models, it is accounted by a parameter, wind reduction factor (WRF). Current values used as WRF are not based on science. In this work, we are presenting a software (preliminary version) that can calculate WRF scientifically. We apply a dynamic WRF obtained from a mathematical model in an operation model, Spark. This will lead to better prediction of RoS, once fully implemented.

}, keywords = {Bushfire, fire management, model, Rate of spread, software development}, issn = {539}, author = {Mahmood Rashid and James Hilton and Nazmul Khan and Duncan Sutherland and Khalid Moinuddin} }