Observations of Severe-Wind Driven and other Wildfires with DOWs

Doppler On Wheels (DOW) mobile / targetable truck-borne radars have deployed to collect fine-scale observations in several wildfires, one, recently, causing widespread destruction in an urban area.   DOW measurements in wildfires permit the mapping of the windfields, hydrometeors, and airborne particles in the fire plumes, and characterization of the near-fire environment.  DOWs can collect windfield and other data below the observing horizon of more distant radars, and at much finer-scale spatial resolution, revealing otherwise unmappable aspects of low-level and small scale structure and evolution. 

 

Observations of three wildfires will be discussed: 

• In 2020, two DOWs deployed in the mountains of Colorado and collected dual-Doppler vector wind data primarily in the fire environment.  
• During another fire in 2020, the DOWs were deployed close to wildfires  which destroyed many homes.  Small-scale vortices and other features are resolvable due to the close proximity of the  deployed radars to the wildfires.  Dual-Doppler DOW analysis, the first fine-scale dual-Doppler analysis of this type,  will be presented.  
• In 2021, a DOW deployed in South Boulder, Colorado in the metropolitan Boulder wildfire / extreme wind event where winds exceeding 45 m/s enhanced fires which destroyed many homes and businesses in the south Boulder area.  The evolution of the wind field was mapped.