*4.5. Limitations*

Recent studies sugges<sup>t</sup> that the heat extinction depth parameter in WRF-SFIRE (or e-folding distance) has a strong influence on the modeled fire and near surface plume behavior [4,23]. Currently, there is no clear theory on how the vertical distribution of fire-released heat above the ground affects near-ground temperatures as well as ROS in the literature. As the relationship appears to be highly non-linear, we have not examined its implications in our simulations.

Overall, our findings sugges<sup>t</sup> that the ability of WRF-SFIRE to capture plume dynamics of a specific real fire largely depends on the availability of timely atmospheric initial conditions and accurate simulation of fire intensity. Owing to the detail and comprehensive nature of the data provided by the RxCADRE experiment, these critical inputs could generally be derived from measurements for the current case study. This sensitivity, however, could present a challenge for future real-time fire simulations, where few or no such measurements would be available.
