According to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center January was the fifth driest January on record in the contiguous United States.
More details from NOAA:
The average January national precipitation total was 1.32 inches, 0.90 inch below the 20th century average, ranking as the fifth-driest January on record and the driest since 2003. Dry conditions dominated much of the western and southern United States, with severe-to-exceptional drought engulfing much of California and Nevada. Numerous winter storms impacted the central and eastern U.S., bringing above-average snowfall but closer-to-average total precipitation for the month.
Fire near Wallan, 60 km north of Melbourne. New South Wales RFS photo.
Police investigating 14 suspicious fires in Victoria
Police and fire investigators in Victoria, Australia are looking carefully at 14 fires that occurred over the last week for which arson is suspected. In over 400 fires since Thursday of last week, homes, animals, and crops have been destroyed or killed. A radio and print ad campaign will urge residents to report any suspicious activity to Crime Stoppers.
Wild meteorology terms go mainstream
Melissa Mahony has written an op-ed for livescience.com in which she examines some interesting and sometimes complex scientific weather terms that have crept into the mainstream over the last year or so. Ms. Mahony goes into a little detail about each one, but here is the list… how many are you familiar with?
Doc Hastings, of “Cantwell-Hastings Bill”, to retire
Rep. Doc Hastings
One of the two federal legislators who deserve most of the blame for passing the infamous Cantwell-Hastings Bill, which did irreparable harm to the process of learning lessons after wildfire accidents, is retiring.
The bill was sponsored by Senator Maria Cantwell and U.S. Representative Doc Hastings, and became Public Law 107-203 in 2002. It includes this passage:
In the case of each fatality of an officer or employee of the Forest Service that occurs due to wildfire entrapment or burnover, the Inspector General of the Department of Agriculture shall conduct an investigation of the fatality. The investigation shall not rely on, and shall be completely independent of, any investigation of the fatality that is conducted by the Forest Service.
The Cantwell-Hastings bill, signed into law in 2002, was a knee-jerk reaction to the fatalities on the Thirtymile fire the previous year. The Department of Agriculture’s Inspector General’s office had no experience or training in the suppression or investigation of wildland fires. They are much more likely to be investigating violations at a chicken ranch than evaluating fire behavior and tactical decisions at a wildfire. The goal of the Inspector General investigation would be to determine if any crimes were committed, so that a firefighter could be charged and possibly sent to prison.
After the bill was passed, a firefighter on the Thirtymile Fire was charged with 11 felonies, including four counts of manslaughter. Now firefighters have to lawyer-up after an accident and they sometimes do everything they can to avoid talking to investigators. After the 19 fatalities on the Yarnell Hill fire, the U.S. Forest Service prohibited their employees from providing information to one of the investigation teams, a decision that may have been a result of the environment created by Cantwell-Hastings. Lessons are now much more difficult to learn.
The Predictive Services section at the National Interagency Fire Center has issued their Wildland Fire Potential Outlook for February through May, 2014. If their prediction is correct there will be elevated wildfire potential in most of the mountainous areas in California and below normal potential in the southeast. Here is their summary:
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“Outlook Period – February, March, and April through May 2014
Executive Summary
The February, March, and April through May 2014 significant wildland fire potential forecasts included in this outlook represent the cumulative forecasts of the eleven Geographic Area Predictive Services Units and the National Predictive Services Unit.
February
Above normal significant fire potential will continue over most of the southern and central California mountains and foothills, including the San Francisco Bay area.
Most of the southeastern U.S. will remain in below normal significant fire potential.
March
Above normal significant fire potential will continue over most of the California mountains and foothills.
Below normal significant fire potential will continue from central Texas to the central Appalachians.
April through May
Above normal significant fire potential will continue over most of the California mountains and foothills.
Below normal significant fire potential expected across the central and eastern Gulf states and the Tennessee Valley.”
The Predictive Services section at the National Interagency Fire Center has issued their Wildland Fire Potential Outlook for January through April, 2014. If their prediction is correct there could be elevated wildfire potential in the San Francisco bay area in January and also in New Mexico and Texas in March and April. Here is their summary:
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“January
Below normal significant wildland fire potential will for most of the southeastern U.S. except for far southern Florida and deep South Texas.
Above normal significant wildland fire potential will affect the Bay Area of Northern California.
February
The Southeast will continue to see below normal significant wildland fire potential along the coastal regions from Virginia to southeastern Texas.
There are no areas of above normal fire potential for February.
March through April
Part of the Southeast will continue to see below normal significant wildland fire potential across eastern Texas and Oklahoma, the lower and mid-Mississippi, and the Tennessee Valley.
Above normal significant wildland fire potential will develop across eastern New Mexico and West Texas in March and April.”
(end of NIFC’s outlook)
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On December 31 the Predictive Services group at the North Zone Coordination Center in Redding, California issued a “Seasonal Outlook” for northern California and Hawaii, which is valid for the months of February through April. In a nutshell, they forecast normal “weather and fuel/fire potential” during the period.
Another Predictive Services group that apparently prefers to remain anonymous has issued a “Monthly/Seasonal Outlook” for January through April, 2014 for California, but does not say when it was prepared or issued. It includes a strange map of a portion of California that is difficult to interpret since it does not have any cities, roads, or counties, but it does have some unidentified boundaries of some sort. While it is not clear, the document appears to be an outlook for the entire state. If so, then the northern California report above is a duplication, except that it also included Hawaii.
As we have stated before, technical reports and outlooks that are decision support tools need to indicate the date it was issued, and which office and personnel analyzed and compiled the information. The one for Northern California does, and even lists the names of the subject matter experts who worked on the report. Good job, Basil Newmerzhycky and John Snook.
How climate change affects wildfire activity. From the Climate Council report. Click to see a larger version.
A report issued by Australia’s privately funded Climate Council has concluded that the number of professionals needed to fight bushfires in Australia will double by 2030. This major shift will be required by changes attributed to climate change. The 63-page report, titled Be Prepared: The Changing Climate and Australia’s Bushfire Threat, is entirely devoted to how climate change is already affecting wildland fires and how the rate of change is expected to increase over the next decades.
According to the report the most direct link between bushfires and climate change comes from the long-term trend towards a hotter climate. The change is increasing the frequency and severity of very hot days and driving up the likelihood of very high fire danger caused by weather. Changes in temperature and rainfall may also affect the amount and condition of fuel and the probability of lightning strikes.
The report lays out the current and predicted situation extremely well through the text and illuminating graphics. Click on the images here from the report to see larger versions.
I especially like the graphic above, which illustrates how four factors that affect wildland fire are being influenced by climate change
Ignitions: more lightning leads to more fires;
Fuel load will increase due to higher carbon dioxide levels, higher temperatures, and more rainfall. It could also decrease in some areas and vegetation types as a result of higher temperatures and less rain.
Fuel condition: higher temperatures and decreasing rainfall will increase fire activity while more rain in some areas will decrease fire activity.
Weather: higher temperatures will greatly increase fire activity.
Obviously it is a complex scenario with the factors having varying effects around the world where climate change affects local areas differently and vegetation types have specific responses to changes in weather.
The report concentrates on the effects in Australia, but also covers changes observed world-wide. As we have pointed out, in the United States there was an abrupt transition of fire activity in the mid-1980s with higher fire frequency, longer fire durations, and longer fire seasons. Fire frequency from 1987 to 2003 was nearly four times the average for 1970 through 1986. The area burned from 1987 to 2003 was more than six times that from 1970 to 1986, and the length of the fire season increased by about 2 months (Westerling et al., 2006).
The report discussed how fires affect carbon in the atmosphere:
Bushfires generate many feedbacks to the climate system, some of which can increase warming, while others decrease it. Emission of CO2 from bushfires generally represents a redistribution of existing carbon in the active carbon cycle from vegetation to the atmosphere.
As long as the vegetation is allowed to recover after a fire, it can reabsorb a very large fraction of the carbon released. By contrast, the burning of fossil fuels represents additional carbon inserted into the active land-atmosphere-ocean carbon cycle.
Increasing fire danger will make it more difficult to find times when planned prescribed fires are within the established prescriptions, which could result in fewer acres treated and higher fuel loads near wildland urban interfaces.
