This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Predicting the unpredictable starts with understanding how extreme wildfires develop and under what conditions. This knowledge is essential to better anticipate and respond to them.
To achieve this, firefighter and researcher Marc Castellnou and the GRAF/Bombers Catalonia team measure the atmosphere both inside and outside wildfire plumes. These measurements provide real-time information to support firefighters battling the flames, while also generating data that can be used to learn from each fire and improve future predictions. Castellnou sends weather balloons straight into towering wildfire plumes to measure temperature, wind and humidity.
By combining these unique measurements with meteorology and computer models, his research opens up a new way to understand—and ultimately predict—extreme wildfires. "If you want to fight fire, you first need to understand how it behaves," says Castellnou. "As climate change creates fuel and weather conditions favorable to more extreme fires, closing this knowledge gap is more urgent than ever." As heat waves and droughts become more intense due to climate change, wildfires pose a particularly dangerous challenge: They can become devastating within minutes, with little warning.
Unlike many other natural hazards, extreme wildfires can suddenly accelerate across the landscape, threatening firefighters and communities before they have time to react. What makes these fires so unpredictable is that they can create their own weather. Weather conditions influence how a fire starts and spreads, but as a fire intensifies, it can generate enormous plumes rising several kilometers into the atmosphere, sometimes forming pyroclouds.
These plumes interact with the surrounding atmosphere, generating powerful winds that can in turn affect the fire itself. This interaction can trigger sudden changes in fire behavior and sustain extreme fire spread. Understanding this two-way interaction is crucial.
Firefighters need to anticipate not only how the weather will affect a fire, but also how the fire will change the weather—and they need that information fast enough to make lifesaving decisions on the ground. How can firefighters anticipate a fire that can change its behavior within minutes? Part of the answer lies inside the plume, even before a pyrocloud forms.
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