Citation

Roads J, Fujioka F, Chen S, Burgan R. Int. J. Wildland Fire 2005; 14(1): 1-18.

Affiliation

Scripps Experimental Climate Prediction Center, University of California San Diego; USDA Forest Service, Riverside Fire Laboratory (Riverside, California) and USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station (Missoula, Montana).

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, International Association of Wildland Fire, Fire Research Institute, Publisher CSIRO Publishing)

DOI

10.1071/WF03052

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The Scripps Experimental Climate Prediction Center has been making experimental, near-real-time, weekly to seasonal fire danger forecasts for the past 5 years. US fire danger forecasts and validations are based on standard indices from the National Fire Danger Rating System (NFDRS), which include the ignition component (IC), energy release component (ER), burning index (BI), spread component (SC), and the Keetchâ??Byram drought index (KB). The Fosberg fire weather index, which is a simplified form of the BI, has been previously used not only for the USA but also for other global regions and is thus included for comparison. As will be shown, all of these indices can be predicted well at weekly times scales and there is even skill out to seasonal time scales over many US West locations. The most persistent indices (BI and ER) tend to have the greatest seasonal forecast skill. The NFDRS indices also have a weak relation to observed fire characteristics such as fire counts and acres burned, especially when the validation fire danger indices are used.