Today the Predictive Services section at the National Interagency Fire Center issued their Wildland Fire Potential Outlook for May through August, 2013. Thankfully they changed the color codes and legend from the partially indecipherable maps last month, so that they are much easier to interpret. Thanks Ed Delgado, NIFC’s Predictive Services manager! It’s much better, but the “Returning to Normal” legend icon is still a little strange.
Below is the Executive Summary from the document.
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The May, June and July through August 2013 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.
May
- -Significant fire potential will be above normal for south central Oregon, the interior mountains and foothills of southern California and the Sacramento Valley and adjacent lower foothills.
- -Significant fire potential will increase to above normal in southeastern Arizona, much of western New Mexico, and northern Virginia.
- -Significant fire potential will be below normal for most of the southeastern U.S., Puerto Rico and the southern half of Alaska.
June
- -Significant fire potential will be above normal over much of California and Oregon, south central Washington, most of Arizona and New Mexico, and southern Utah and Colorado.
- -Significant fire potential will remain below normal for the central Gulf states and Puerto Rico.
- -Significant fire potential will return to normal in northern Virginia.
July and August
- Above normal significant fire potential will remain in California, Oregon and Washington while expanding into central Idaho and southwestern Montana.
- Significant fire potential will return to normal in the Southwest.
- Significant fire potential will be below normal in the far Southeast and Puerto Rico.
