Atmospheric releases during the 2003 glacier wildfires: Mapping, analysis and modeling

A combined GIS and remote sensing approach to map and model the large wildfires in the summer 2003 at Glacier National Park. Numerical simulations were performed using the Clarke cellular automaton fire model, and the fire extents were validated using remote sensing data from the MODIS instrument. The results show a good correlation between the predicted fires and the actual. In addition, remote sensing data from the MODIS and TOMS instruments are used to quantify the optical dimming of the atmosphere caused by the fires. Atmospheric dimming correlated both spatially and temporally with the amount of burned fuel computed by the Clarke model. The observed atmospheric dimming is correlated both spatially and temporally with the fire simulations. Such knowledge is crucial in order to build a coupled land-atmosphere fire model.