Tag: potential

Wildfire potential through March, 2014

The Predictive Services section at the National Interagency Fire Center has issued their Wildland Fire Potential Outlook for December, 2013 through March, 2014. If their prediction is correct there is nothing extraordinary ahead, except for reduced wildfire potential over much of the south. Here is their summary:

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The December 2013, January 2014 and February through March 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.

December

Below normal fire potential will continue from southern Texas to the Ohio Valley and the southern Appalachians. Short-term increases in fire activity are possible along the lower Atlantic Coast.
There are no areas of above normal significant wildland fire potential for December.

January

The Southeast will continue to see below normal significant wildland fire potential from East Texas to the Ohio Valley and the southern Appalachians.
There are short-term fire concerns for Florida.
There are no areas of above normal fire potential for December.

February through March

Below normal fire potential will develop from the central Gulf to the Mid-Atlantic states.
No areas of above normal significant wildland fire potential are expected for February or March.

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Wildfire potential through February, 2014

After skipping the October Wildland Fire Potential Outlook because of the government shutdown, today the Predictive Services section at the National Interagency Fire Center issued their Wildland Fire Potential Outlook for November through February. If their prediction is correct there is nothing extraordinary ahead, except for above normal potential in southern California in November. Here is their summary:

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“The November and December 2013, and January through February, 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.

November

Significant wildland fire potential remains above normal for Central and South Coast of southern California but will return to normal by the end of the month.
Below normal fire potential will continue from central Texas to the Ohio Valley and the central Appalachians. Short-term increases in fire activity are possible along the lower Atlantic Coast.

December

The Southeast will continue to see below normal significant wildland fire potential from central Texas through the Appalachians, except possible short-term increases in Florida.
There are no areas of above normal fire potential for December.

January through February

Below normal fire potential will continue from eastern Texas to the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys.
No areas of above normal significant wildland fire potential are expected for January or February.”

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Wildfire potential, September through December, 2013

The Predictive Services section at the National Interagency Fire Center issued their Wildland Fire Potential Outlook for September through December, 2013. If their prediction is correct the world of wildland fire will be slower than normal everywhere in the United States except for California. Here is a summary:

September

Significant fire potential remains above normal for a large portion California due to long term drought and high fire danger indices. This will be exacerbated by the possibility of off-shore flow events developing.
The remainder of the western U.S. will return to normal September conditions and begin to transition into regular fall fire activity levels.
In the western Great Lakes states conditions will increase to normal and some fall fire activity should be expected
The southeast will continue to see periodic moisture and a below normal fall fire season, except possible short term increases across the southern plains.

October

Most of California will return to normal during October as fall develops in earnest. This will be late month for portions of northern California
Southwestern California will continue to see above normal significant fire potential through the month and will also have a continued threat of off-shore flow events.
Below normal fire potential will continue across portions of the eastern U.S.

November and December

The remainder of California will return to normal out of season significant fire potential during this period.
Below normal fire potential will continue across portions of the eastern U.S

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Wildfire potential, August through November, 2013

Today the Predictive Services section at the National Interagency Fire Center issued their Wildland Fire Potential Outlook for August through November, 2013. Here is their prediction for August:

Significant fire potential remains above normal for a large portion of the Northwest and the California mountains as fuels remain much drier than normal. South central Alaska will have higher significant fire potential in early August. The East will remain wet through August.

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Wildfire potential, July through October, 2013

Monday the Predictive Services section at the National Interagency Fire Center issued their Wildland Fire Potential Outlook for July through October, 2013.

As you probably know, fire activity is high right now in Arizona and New Mexico. Here is NIFC’s prediction for July in the Southwest:

Significant wildland fire potential will remain above normal across much of Arizona and northwestern New Mexico in early July and slowly return to normal across the Area from east to west as the monsoon develops. The Area will remain normal from August through October.

July will bring an end to the typical fire season weather pattern and begin the transitions to a monsoonal pattern. In July, upper level high pressure will be in place over the Great Basin to begin the month which will allow most areas east of the divide to moisten up with higher humidity and areas of scattered wet storms during the first week of July. Moisture will lead to more lightning potential into Arizona during the first week or so of July until the upper high eventually settles far enough north and east to allow moisture intrusion through all of Arizona. As usual, moisture will develop from east to

west leaving northern and northwestern Arizona the last to return to normal around mid-July or shortly thereafter.

Below is the Executive Summary from the document:
Continue reading

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Wildfire potential, June through September, 2013

Today the Predictive Services section at the National Interagency Fire Center issued their Wildland Fire Potential Outlook for June through September, 2013. The above normal wildfire potential across California in June is predicted to spread during July, August, and September into all of Oregon and parts of Washington, Idaho, Nevada, and Montana, while the fire danger in the southwest will begin decreasing in July as the area enters their monsoon season.

With the extremely low moisture content in California’s live vegetation expected to get even lower throughout the summer, firefighters and property owners in the state should prepare for one of the busiest fire seasons on record, if the predictions are correct for the drought to continue.

There will not be enough firefighters to protect every house when fires move into an urban interface, so homeowners need to realize their responsibility to make their property fire safe.

Below is the Executive Summary from the document:
Continue reading

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Wildfire potential, May through August, 2013

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.

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NIFC produces wildfire outlook, target audience: children

The External Affairs section at the National Interagency Fire Center has apparently chosen children as their target audience for this “2013 Preseason PIO Podcast” about the upcoming fire season.

It is not clear who should receive the, uh, ~~blame~~ credit, for this innovation, but Ed Delgado, the Fire Weather Program Manager, narrates this two-minute video.

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Wildfire potential, for 2013

The map above is an attempt by the U.S. Forest Service to quantify by location the potential, this year, of wildfires that that would be difficult for suppression resources to contain. Areas with higher values have a higher probability of experiencing high-intensity fire with torching, crowning, and other forms of extreme fire behavior.

A much larger zoomable version of the map can be found here (1.5MB). (It becomes more interesting when you click to zoom in to see more detail.)

At their web site, the USFS does not describe in detail the criteria for developing the map but it appears to be primarily past fire occurrence, estimates of wildfire likelihood and intensity, vegetation, and probably topography. Recent weather, most likely not so much.

Below is an excerpt about the map from their web site:

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“Using the FPA FSim products as inputs, as well as spatial data for vegetation and fuels characteristics from LANDFIREand point locations of fire occurrence from FPA (ca. 1992 – 2010), we used a logical series of geospatial processing steps to produce an index of WFP for all of CONUS at 270m resolution. The final WFP map is presented here in two forms: 1) continuous integer values, and 2) classified into five WFP classes of very low, low, moderate, high, and very high. We don’t intend for the WFP map to take the place of any of the FSim products; rather, we hope that it provides a useful addition to the information available to managers, policy makers, and scientists interested in wildland fire risk analysis in the United States. On its own, WFP does not provide an explicit map of wildfire threat or risk, because no information on the effects of wildfire on specific values such as habitats, structures or infrastructure is incorporated in its development. However, the WFP map could be used to create value-specific risk maps when paired with spatial data depicting highly valued resources (Thompson et al. 2011a, Thompson et al. 2011b).”

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Wildfire potential, April through July, 2013

The Predictive Services section at the National Interagency Fire Center has issued their Wildland Fire Potential Outlook for April through July, 2013.

Beginning in February of this year they changed their legend, unfortunately, so now, for me anyway, it is difficult to compare the tiny little boxes in the legend with the corresponding areas on the maps. Or perhaps it’s just the way my computer monitor renders colors. But check out the May map below, for example, and especially the legend codes for “Returning to Normal” and “Decreasing to Below Normal”. Maybe if they varied the direction of the cross-hatching and used colors that were not quite so similar it would help. This reminds me of a National Weather Service product that uses seven shades of light brown in their legend.

(UPDATE: April 2, 2013: I received a call from Ed Delgado, NIFC’s Predictive Services manager, who said he read the above, and agrees that the colors and/or legend needs to be improved. Next month’s report, he said, will be easier to interpret.)

Below is an excerpt from their report, followed by maps:

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April

Significant fire potential will increase over most of Florida as lingering drought keeps fuels dry.
Most of the East and Gulf regions will have below normal significant fire potential as active storm patterns keep conditions wet and cool.
Cool and wet conditions will keep southern Alaska significant fire potential below normal.

May

Significant fire potential will remain above normal over most of Florida.
Significant fire potential will increase across western Minnesota and western Iowa as wet and cool conditions return to normal.
Drought conditions will increase significant fire potential to above normal over parts of New Mexico and Arizona.

June and July

Significant fire potential will be above normal in mountains and foothills of southern California.
Significant fire potential will increase to above normal over northern California and the Northwest.
Significant fire potential will decrease to normal in Florida, Minnesota, Iowa, New Mexico and Arizona.

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