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Marc ParisienCanadian Forest Service

Northern Forestry Centre, Edmonton AB

The Burn-P3 fire simulation model

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A landscape model that simulates the ignition and spread wildfires

A tool initially designed for long-term planning of fire management activities

A Windows-based software

What is Burn-P3?

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100Nb

BP ii

Fire spread simulation

(Prometheus)

Fire perimeter

Ignition *

Fuels (“snapshot”)

Topography

Weather duration*daily conditions*

I N P U T B P    M O D E L O U T P U T

*probabilistic

0.1%   10050,00050

Burn-P3 general design

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The Burn-P3 software

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Burn-P3 user documentation

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Risk analysis

Beverly et al. (2009, For. Ecol. Manage)

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Fuels and topography

Burn probability Flame length

Parisien et al. (Nat. Haz.)

Burn probability Flame length

Parisien et al. (Nat. Haz.)

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Likelihood of burning

Burn probability and fire effects

Potential fire impacts

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Simulating the ignition and spread captures the spatial context of wildfires

Burn-P3 is a data-hungry model… but we have lots of data

Incorporating natural variability increases the accuracy of modeled BP

After the initial time investment, it’s fairly easy to run what-if scenarios

Concluding remarks

15Thank youPhoto: Simon Hunt (Parks Canada)