Fire code in WRF release

This page tracks the fire code as released with WRF.

WRF 3.2

Code version of 19 Feb 2010 was released with WRF 3.2 on April, 2 2010.

WRF 3.3

The code submitted for the WRF release was the version of Nov 20, 2010 with the bug fix of Jan 17, 2011. The fire module files released in WRF 3.3 on April 6, 2011 were modified at NCAR from the submitted version.

Differences from the submitted code

Scroll down for line-by-line list of differences. Removed lines are colored red and marked with -. Added lines are colored green and marked with +.

• The wind reduction factors feature was removed [1] [2]. This in effect limits the code to ideal runs with a single fuel.
• Comments were removed and replaced [3] [4] [5] [6] [7], plus a number of smaller edits.
• Small (max about 1%) changes to default values of fuel data variables [8]
• Several variables were renamed [9] [10].
• Spread rate was changed in two cases [11] [12] by effectively counting the zero-wind rate twice later on [13] [14].
• Identification of the git commit the files come from was deleted [15] [16].
• The examples were replaced.
• Routine software engineering changes: ONLY was added to USE statements [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]

Compare with WRF-Fire mailing list post of April 7, 2011, announcing the changes in the code in the WRF release.

How was the comparison obtained

To track the files, we have created the branch branch WRF_release in our git repository, starting from the files as submitted. One bug fix was applied, giving the final version submitted for the WRF release. We have then copied over separately the fire module files from the WRF 3.3 release at http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/wrf/src/WRFV3.3.TAR.gz, giving the comparison of the fire module files above. Finally, the rest of the files in the WRF release was copied over in order to get the final files in the release.

Resulting changes in the model description paper

• Paper manuscript, accepted for discussion on March 2, 2011, describing the fire code as submitted for the WRF release.
• Interactive discussion about the paper.
  • Comment of April 18, 2011, stating that the release may be different.
  • Reply to the comment on April 26, 2011 .
  • Summary of the differences on June 4, 2011.
• Final version of the model description paper published July 7, 2011 with modifications, including a different title, which were necessary because of the code changes in the WRF release.

Resulting changes in the Users Guide

• Since the guide distributed as appendix in WRF Users's Guide is not updated to the current code, the fire code Users Guide was moved to the openwfm.org wiki on August 6, 2011, and also extended by existing howtos as chapters.

WRF 3.4

We did not submit a new version of the fire code for WRF 3.4, released on April 6, 2012.

The only differences in the fire module files between the 3.3 and 3.4 releases are due to routine software maintenance done at NCAR:

• Additional variables were added to the fire_sfire package description in file registry.fire [23] to remove them from a WRF build without the fire option.
• Some uninitialized variables were corrected in dead code [24] [25] [26] from abandoned experiments in 2008 and 2010. Following up, we have cleaned up the dead code in our repository.

To track the changes in the code in the WRF release, we have copied the fire module code from WRF 3.4 over the files in branch WRF_release. To keep tracking in future, we have then copied the rest of the files from the WRF release in branch WRF_release.

See also

• WRF-Fire development notes
• WRF-Fire
• SFIRE