Forecasting Integrated Lightning and Fuels Ignition Potential

Currently fire weather forecasters, fire planners, and decision makers do not have easy access to information needed to verify the accuracy of, or to communicate the level of confidence in, fire weather forecasts and the fire prediction products that depend on fire weather forecasts. In this project we produce a set set of intuitive, easily understandable meteorological model performance assessments to provide end-users with real-time information about meteorological model bias, model reliability, and overall performance of predictions of fire weather variables used in predictions of ignition risk potential. When complete, this system will provide an easily accessible set of web-based products that include (1) color contour displays of sustained ignition probability at 1-km resolution for the western United States; (2) color contour displays of key meteorological parameter forecasts; and (3) information about confidence in the meteorological forecasts, time-series plots, and statistics that provide model-to-model and model-to-observation comparisons. The results will aid decision makers in positioning resources, making go/no-go decisions on prescribed burns, determining when fire might be used to meet resource management needs, and determining the local certainty of fire weather forecasts.