fire counts of clm

[Sijia Chen]

I cannot understand why the annual total number of fires calculated using the NFIRE variable does not match the number of records where the burned area is greater than zero. Which one actually represents the real-world number of fires?

 

[slevis]

I recommend reading this chapter in the CLM Technote:

2.24. Fire — ctsm release-clm5.0 documentation

 

[Sijia Chen]

I recommend reading this chapter in the CLM Technote:

2.24. Fire — ctsm release-clm5.0 documentation

Thank you very much.
Actually, I have already read it, but I really cannot understand the meaning of the NFIRE variable. Since the model specifies that each ignition can only burn for one day, why is it that the total number of grid points with recorded values each day over a year does not match the value calculated from NFIRE? That is, NFIRE * area * the number of seconds in a year. Moreover, it is impossible to determine which grid points with continuous time periods can be classified as the same fire event. I really hope an expert can answer my question. Please!

 

[oleson]

The fire expert doesn't appear to be a member of this Forum, but I will try to ping her with your question. In looking at the code and documentation it seems to me that NFIRE (which corresponds to nfire_col in the code) only represents fire count for non-peat fires outside cropland and tropical closed forest.