Tag: potential

The National Interagency Fire Center has released their outlook for wildfire potential for September through December, 2010.

According to their Predictive Services section, the primary factors influencing the outlook are:

• Tropical Moisture: Above normal rainfall due to an anticipated active storm pattern will likely lead to lower fire potential across the southeastern states in September.

• Drought: Areas of long-term dryness stretching from northeast Texas to the Mid-Atlantic States will lead to above normal fire potential during the fall fire season.

• Offshore Winds: Anticipated offshore winds in southern California combined with dry conditions will produce elevated fire potential into the fall.

Click on the images to see larger versions 

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The National Interagency Fire Center has released their prediction for wildfire potential for the next four months. If this turns out to be accurate, there is not going to be a lot of overtime earned during this period. Click on the images below to see larger versions.

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These maps are from the National Interagency Fire Center, updated today. If this proves to be the case, it looks like a very quiet summer for wildland firefighters in the United States. The exceptions are Arizona in the first part of July, central Alaska in July, and Hawaii in the late summer. Click on them to see very large versions. More details.

The National Interagency Fire Center has issued their outlook for wildfire potential for the summer, June through July.

The outlook for June 1 to June 30, 2010, below, has an “issued date” of May 3, 2010, and says “next issuance June 1, 2010”. But it is different from the previous map posted a month ago for the month of May with an issued date of May 3, 2010. So we’re going out on a limb here and will assume that the map below is actually for the month of June, was issued on June 1, and they just forgot to update the issued date.

These guys are driving me crazy. A couple of months ago they posted a seasonal outlook that was supposed to be current, but it was actually a year old. Of course I pasted one of the maps here, and didn’t realize the error until Ken kindly pointed it out.

Click on the maps to see larger versions.

The map below is a little more straight forward. It is for July through September, and was issued on June 1, 2010.

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Today the National Interagency Fire Center issued their Wildland Fire Potential Outlook for May through August. Here is the narrative from the site:

• Drought: Drought conditions continue to persist over northeast California and northwest Nevada, western Wyoming, western Montana and much of Idaho.
• Snowpack: Snowpack in the Southwest has been well above average, while in western Wyoming through the northern Rockies the snowpack has been well below average.
• Grassland Fuels: Abundant fine fuels across southern Arizona are expected to lead to a 4-6 week active grassland fire season. Fine fuels are not expected to be of concern in the Great Basin. There is an increased large fire risk over the California desert areas in June due to fine fuels decreasing to normal by July.
• Fire Season Onset: In areas with above average snowpack, fire season onset will be delayed due to a later snowpack melt.
• Southwest Monsoon: Early indications suggest monsoon onset will occur around the typical start date or later with associated precipitation amounts near normal for the season.

Click on the maps to see larger versions.

The National Interagency Coordination Center has released their assessment of the wildland fire potential outlook for April through July. If it is correct, it could be a pretty quiet first part of the fire season for most of the West.

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(Note: the images above replaced one that was taken from the NICC site, where it said “issued the first business day of each month”, but it was for the first day of April,  2009, not 2010. Thanks to Ken for pointing out the error. NICC has since fixed the error.)

The National Parks Traveler has an article that assesses the wildfire potential for the National Parks for this summer.