Articles | Volume 18, issue 24
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-7805-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-7805-2025
Research article
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22 Dec 2025
Research article | Highlight paper |  | 22 Dec 2025

Integrating fireline observations to characterize fire plumes during pyroconvective extreme wildfire events: implications for firefighter safety and plume modeling

Marc Castellnou Ribau, Mercedes Bachfischer, Pau Guarque, Laia Estivill, Marta Miralles Bover, Borja Ruiz, Jordi Pagès, Brian Verhoeven, Zisoula Ntasiou, Ove Stokkeland, Chiel van Heerwaarden, Tristan Roelofs, Martin Janssens, Cathelijne R. Stoof, and Jordi Vilà-Guerau de Arellano

Data sets

Radiosonde dataset of: Integrating Fireline Observations to Characterize Fire Plumes During Pyroconvective Extreme Wildfire Events: Implications for Firefighter Safety and Plume Modeling (Campaigns 2021-2025) Marc Castellnou Ribau et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17886250

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Executive editor
Obtaining a better understanding of how the fire-perturbed atmosphere may ignite more fuel is important to firefighters, but it is also a topic of interest for the general public. If large enough, fires can grow by feeding themselves. Atmospheric measurements during a fire can help scientists and firefighters better understand how the fire will evolve and whether there is a risk that the fire will run out of control. The authors show that using sonde measurements during the fire enables firefighters to better predict how it will evolve, thereby improving their security. At the same time, such measurements provide a valuable dataset for scientific model testing and development.
Short summary
Firefighter entrapments can occur when wildfires escalate suddenly due to fire-atmosphere interactions. This study presents a method to analyze this in real-time using two weather balloon measurements: ambient and in-plume conditions. Researchers launched 156 balloons during wildfire seasons in Spain, Chile, Greece, and the Netherlands. This methodology detects sudden changes in fire behavior by comparing ambient and in-plume data, ultimately enhancing research on fire-atmosphere interactions.
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