The New South Wales Rural Fire Service in Australia sent this interesting tweet today — an animated wildfire smoke forecast. I have not seen this distributed to the public in the United States.
After you start the video and click on the arrows at the bottom-right, it will fill the screen and you can almost read the names of the geographic features. So obviously it needs a better background map (and maybe fewer wind direction arrows that clutter the image) but it has potential for keeping the public informed about wildfire smoke.
Smoke from #PilligaFire likely to drift across #Gunnendah #Narrabri and #WeeWaa with the wind change. #NSWRFS pic.twitter.com/mOtAkcePko
— NSW RFS (@NSWRFS) January 14, 2016
As an Air Resource Advisor we create these animationes using Hysplit or BluSky for wildfires. We are also using them for prescribed burning in the southeast. great tool.