Lessons learned from the EWED project: integrating atmospheric observations and modelling into extreme wildfire decision making

Extreme wildfires are strongly modulated by their interaction with the atmosphere, yet this coupling is rarely accounted for in operational wildfire management. The Extreme Wildfire Event Data Hub for Improved Decision Making (EWED) project brought together firefighters and atmospheric scientists from four European countries to bridge this gap: raising awareness of wildfire-atmosphere coupling and translating scientific understanding into tools that improve the management and suppression of extreme wildfires. In this contribution, we present the lessons learned from EWED.

Central to the EWED approach is the deployment of balloon soundings into and near wildfire plumes, a novel observation strategy that provides decision makers with information on the vertical structure of the atmosphere. Such profiles are critical for anticipating dramatic changes in fire behaviour and rate of spread, and simultaneously serve as a unique dataset for advancing plume science. During 2024 and 2025, firefighting teams across the project collected balloon observations during live wildfire events. These data are made publicly available through the Wildfire Data Portal (wildfiredataportal.eu), a platform developed within EWED to serve both the research and operational communities.

On the modelling side, EWED has advanced the understanding of wildfire plume dynamics through two complementary lines of work. First, three-dimensional simulations informed by the balloon soundings have revealed important new insights into near-surface inflow patterns and circulations downstream of the fire head. Second, coupled fire-spread simulations operating at the turbulence time scale reproduce poorly understood fire-spread acceleration as an emergent effect of deep plume formation, offering a promising pathway to address the rate-of-speed underestimation commonly observed in extreme wildfires.

Building on these observations and simulations, we developed a conceptual weather model combined with an entraining plume model that enables firefighters to estimate plume rise as a function of fire properties and the vertical thermodynamic structure of the lower atmosphere. By incorporating forecast atmospheric boundary layer profiles a few hours ahead of time, the model allows decision makers to anticipate changes in plume behaviour before they materialise. The potential of combining balloon observations with these modelling tools was demonstrated during a three-day training event for operational firefighters.

By revealing the potential for substantial safety improvements, EWED has provided a roadmap for better integration of meteorological information into wildfire firefighting. This integration will be carried forward and deepened in the recently started EU-funded Open Decision-making system for enhancing Europe's preparedness and response capacities to Extreme wildfires (ODET) project.