Validation of smoke plume rise models using ground based lidar

Biomass fires can significantly degrade regional air quality. Plume rise height is one of the critical factors determining the impact of fire emissions on air quality. Plume rise models are used to prescribe the vertical distribution of fire emissions which are critical input for smoke dispersion and air quality models. The poor state of model evaluation is due in large part to a lack of appropriate observational datasets. We have initiated a research project to address this critical observation gap. A ground-based, mobile elastic scanning lidar (light detection and ranging) instrument and data-processing methodology have been developed at the Missoula Fire Science Laboratory to study the three-dimensional plume dynamics and the optical properties of smoke particles over large prescribed fires and wildfires. The lidar measurements are being used to validate several plume rise models, including the Briggs equations which are used in VSMOKE and other smoke management tools. We present the validation results and provide recommendations regarding application of the models to wildland fire