Pandora
Introduction
In Greek mythology, Pandora was the wife of Prometheus' brother, Epimetheus. Whereas Prometheus means "forethought", Epimetheus means "afterthought". Pandora received a bad reputation because she opened a box which she was forbidden to open. All the evil from the box was subsequently unleashed into the world. Her only real crime though was her curiosity.
Pandora is a Windows application that gives users the ability to batch-run basic Prometheus simulations without using the Prometheus user interface. All the parameters for the simulations are specified in a single text file, including the directory locations of data input files, e.g.) weather, fuels, terrain. Any number of simulations can be specified in the parameters text file.
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| Figure 1. Pandora user interface. |
The user interface consists of a single dialog box (Figure 1) in which the parameters file name is specified, and progress information is displayed. The parameters file can also be specified as a command-line argument, which begins processing immediately and then shuts the program down when all of the simulations are complete. This allows Pandora to be called from other applications.
Pandora has primarily been used for ensemble modelling, and longer-term fire planning projects because it can easily be used to simulate large numbers of fires. However, there are many options available in the Prometheus application that are currently not available in Pandora.
The Pandora application was developed by the Canadian Forest Service (CFS) with support from Alberta Sustainable Resource Development.
Features
- Standalone executable
- Run any number of Prometheus simulations in a batch
- Requires PrometheusCOM
- Reads all parameters from a text file
- Required inputs: fuels, weather, parameters file, projection file
- Optional inputs: fuel type lookup table, elevation, slope, aspect, ignition shape file
- Outputs: fire perimeters (shape files), FBP components e.g. fire intensity, spread rate (ascii grids)
- Help file
Options
- Fuel lookup table
- Terrain grid inputs
- Grass curing
- Time interval
- Burn period settings
- Angle and distance thresholds
- Hourly FFMC calculation method
- Output files and locations
- Log file (includes area burned)
- Single or multiple ignitions
Spatial Fire Management System Link
Pandora is used to make the Prometheus fire growth model available to users of the Spatial Fire Management System (SFMS). This functionality is included in the SFMS fire growth modelling (FGM) extension.
Download
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| Figure 2. Pandora help file. |
Pandora is freely available from the following Canadian Forest Service FTP site:
Download pandora.zip, which contains the following two files:
- pandora.exe - executable file
- pandora.hlp - help file
Both files should be extracted to the same folder directory. The executable file is the actual application. No installation is necessary (besides the PrometheusCOM). More information about Pandora can be found in the help file (Figure 2).
Contact
Peter Englefield
Officer, Physical Sciences
Northern Forestry Centre
5320 122 Street Northwest
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
T6H 3S5
Phone: 780-435-7254
Email: Peter.Englefield@NRCan-RNCan.gc.ca