As part of the sudoe EUBURN project (WP2.2), two researchers from the Center for sci-tech Research in EArth sysTem and Energy (CREATE) at the University of Évora joined the Dynamic team of the Laboratoire d’Aérologie (LAERO) at the University of Toulouse for research stays.
Marion Ranaivombola undertook a 14-month post-doctoral stay (2025–2026), dedicated to developing a chemical flux emission module within the Meso-NH atmospheric model coupled with the ForeFire fire model. This work aims to understand and model the transport and rapid chemical transformations of combustion gases and aerosols in forest fire plumes. In this context, researcher Flavio Couto also completed a three-week mobility in October 2026, strengthening exchanges and scientific work between the two laboratories.
These visits have led to significant progress in using coupled models to represent the fronts and chemical emissions of forest fires and their heterogeneous transformations in the pollution plume, from the local LES scale to the regional scale.
This work is based on the study of the Sigean fire (July 26, 2025, Aude, France), documented by airborne observations made aboard SAFIRE's ATR 42 during the SILEX campaign of the EUBURN project.
The initial simulations of the Sigean fire show encouraging results regarding fire propagation and plume dynamics. They allow for the reproduction of the horizontal and vertical dispersion of carbon monoxide (CO). Comparison with airborne measurements from the SILEX campaign is an important step for evaluating and improving the representation of emissions and their atmospheric transport.
This visit provided information for the exploratory MeteoFire 1.0 project currently under development at CREATE – University of Évora. This project focuses on identifying and characterizing forest fire risks using various data sources and methodologies, including high-resolution atmospheric modeling, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.
