SFIRE variables

Back to the WRF-SFIRE user guide.

Introduction

The fire mesh is 2D. Every atmosphere cell is divided into sr_x by sr_y fire cells. The submesh ratios sr_x and sr_y are specified in the file namelist.input. These values are not stored in the NetCDF files, but can be computed from the dimension sizes.

sr_x=west_east_subgrid/west_east_stag = west_east_subgrid/(west_east + 1)
sr_y=south_north_subgrid/south_north_stag = south_north_subgrid/(south_north + 1)

For historical reasons, the fire grid dimensions in the output files are larger than what is actually used by the code internally. The extra space is at the end of the variables of size sr_x in x and sr_y in y. The following is an example of python code for correctly reading FGRNHFX from the file wrfout.

from netCDF4 import Dataset
f=Dataset('wrfout','r')
sr_x=len(f.dimensions['west_east_subgrid'])/(len(f.dimensions['west_east'])+1)
sr_y=len(f.dimensions['south_north_subgrid'])/(len(f.dimensions['south_north'])+1)
fgrnhfx=f.variables['FGRNHFX']
fgrnhfx=fgrnhfx[...,:-sr_y,:-sr_x]

Variables on the fire mesh are located at the centers of the fire mesh cells of a 2D fire mesh.

List of variables

The authoritative information can be always found in the Registry.

State

Variable name	Unit	Description
FXLONG, FXLAT	degrees (real)	longitude and latitude of the nodes (centers of the fire mesh)
	1 (ideal)	mesh coordinates of the nodes; lower left is (0.5,0.5)

Diagnostics

Variable name	Unit	Description
FGRNHFX	J/m2	heat flux from the ground fire