The Making of National Seasonal Wildland Fire Outlooks

Timothy BrownProgram for Climate, Ecosystem and Fire Applications

Desert Research Institute

Gregg GarfinClimate Assessment for the Southwest

University of Arizona

Holly Hartmann

Department of Hydrology and Water ResourcesUniversity of Arizona

Ultimate Objectives

Produce seasonal wildland fire potential outlook

Develop standard content and protocols

Improve use of climate products and forecasts

Encompass both process and product

$2B/year in federal fire suppression even if there’s no big event!!

Stakeholder-driven Climate Science/Services Research Process

Workshop goals

Increase organizational capacity

Enhance multi-agency collaboration

Improve use of forecast information and climatological

analyses

Transition results of research to an operational process for

improved communication and decision making

Workshop participants

Fire weather meteorologists

Fuels specialists

Fire specialists

Fire management

Climatologists

50-60 participants last year (beyond

committee size)

Geographic Area Coordination Centers

Seasonal Fire Outlook Content- it’s a package of items, not just a map

Executive summary

Introduction and objectives

Current conditions

Climate outlooks

Fire occurrence and resource outlooks

Future scenarios and probabilities

Management implications and concerns

Summary and recommendations

Monitoring of current climate conditions

Temperature/precipitation anomalies: mid & high

elevations, complex terrain

Snow: complex terrain, departure from usual

ENSO:multiple definitions are an issue

Circulation: more upper air observations

Drought indices: multiple definitions (impact-based vs.

hydro-based), soil moisture, scale

Protocol/Needs

Monitoring of current fire & fuel conditions

Fire danger

Vegetation greenness:NDVI, land surface conditions

Fuel moisture: presently use algorithms, not in situ

observations

Fire occurrence: data is abysmal

Fire behavior: highly local

Protocol/Needs

Outlooks/forecasts/predictions

Relating episodic conditions to climate conditions, lightning,

monsoon

Long-range temperature/precipitation

Circulation: synoptic patterns & CPC outlooks

ENSO

Drought forecasts

Soil moisture forecasts

Fire weather/danger indices

Protocol/Needs

Future Scenarios Fire Family Plus tool: historical review + analog weather generator

Priority sub-regions within Geographic Area: mortality areas PJ dieoff, pine bark

beetle

Fuel-type considerations: carryover fuel, effects of snowcover (e.g., on standing

grass)

Climate considerations: 4-6 years ago + future

Season ending event probabilities: e.g., abrupt or slow evolution of cool/wet

conditions

Focus on analogs: need ‘best practices’ guidance

Fire Outlooks

Seasonal fire occurrence/activity estimates

Estimates of expected resource needs: for

suppression, prescribed burning, fire use

(plans for letting natural fires burn).

Protocol/Final Product

Will fire managers give up resources for other regions

If so, is it based on climate or fuels considerations?

Measure of Success

Late Feb 2003

White area means we need more research, not that the forecast is for ‘normal’ conditions.

Colors indicate at some point during the period, not necessarily for the whole period.

Future of Product and Process

Post-mortems and verification:

how to verify shift in risk (fire potential), when the risk lacks good

definition?

Evolution of product

Process continues to advance:

Community actually using climate outlooks in a formal process

NICC investing in training workshops for GACC meteorologists

(information intermediaries). Will decision makers participate?