Fire eruption: First results from the California Canyon fire experiment

Webinar registration.

The California Canyon Fire Experiment is the first large-scale field experiment that observed fire eruption. The experiment was conducted in a steep canyon near Salinas, CA on 24 October 2022. A large suite of in situ and remote sensing instruments were deployed including micrometeorological towers, Doppler radar and lidar and airborne infrared imaging systems. The experiment was designed to allow a head fire to spread freely up a canyon under weak ambient winds to investigate the mechanisms of fire eruption. Preliminary results indicate that fire eruption occurred after the fire front reached the upper region of the canyon and fire spread was dominated by fire-induced in-drafts measured by Doppler lidar. This presentation will describe the goals of the experiment, experimental design, the phenomena sampled, the instruments used, and preliminary results.