Recent advancements in fire-atmosphere modeling have increased the number of physical processes integrated into the coupled models. This greater complexity allows for more comprehensive representation of the complex interactions between the fire and the atmosphere; however, as a consequence of these advancements, data requirements for the model initialization and validation have increased as well. As the coupled fire-atmosphere models utilize local flow properties to parameterize fire progression, emissions and plume rise, integrated in-situ measurements are needed for their validation and future development. In this proposal, we define key problems associated with using WRF-SFIRE-CHEM for wildfire and smoke forecasting, as well as propose measurement data that would help to mitigate them. We propose how fire, meteorological, and micrometeorological observations accompanied by heat flux estimates and chemical measurements could be used to advance current capabilities of WRF-SFIRE-CHEM in terms of representation of the fire spread, plume thermodynamics (including the pyro cumulus formation), smoke chemistry, and smoke radiative effects. We will use statistically processed historical data (typical weather conditions for the anticipated burn locations and times) to create synthetic observations. We will run an ensemble of pre-burn simulations with various values of a small number of model parameters. We will use the synthetic observations to develop procedures to estimate the fuel parameters and to optimize the experimental design. Phase II will then use the data from the experimental burns to identify the parameters and to improve the model.