Toward a Better Understanding of Wildfire Behavior in the Wildland-Urban
Interface: A Case Study of the 2021 Marshall Fire
Abstract
On 30 December 2021, the Marshall Fire devastated the Boulder, Colorado
region. The fire initiated in fine fuels in open space just southeast of
Boulder and spread rapidly due to the strong, downslope winds that
penetrated into the Boulder Foothills. Despite the increasing occurrence
of wildland-urban interface (WUI) disasters, many questions remain about
how fires progress through vegetation and the built environment. To help
answer these questions for the Marshall Fire, we use a coupled
fire-atmosphere model and Doppler on Wheels (DOW) observations to study
the fire’s progression as well as examine the physical drivers of its
spread. Evaluation of the model using the DOW suggests that the model is
able to capture general characteristics of the flow field; however, it
does not produce as robust of a hydraulic jump as the one observed. Our
results highlight limitations of the model that should be addressed for
successful WUI simulations.