Past, Present, and Future: The Fire Warning Paradigm in AWIPS

For many years, the National Weather Service (NWS) has issued fire warnings at the request of local officials to disseminate fire information and relay evacuation orders to the public. This practice has been in effect since the early 2000’s when the Federal Communications Commission amended rules regarding the Emergency Alert System to allow new natures of activation to promote public safety. NWS Directives explicitly state Fire Warnings must not be unilaterally issued by weather forecast offices, rather should be requested, defined, and written by external partner agencies.

NWS Forecasters can use several suites within the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) to create county-based fire weather related hazard areas (Graphical Hazard Generator (GHG)/Graphical Forecast Editor (GFE)) or draw up hazard-specific polygons (WarnGen). GHG/GFE is the primary issuance tool for Fire Warnings at most NWS offices, resulting in an entire county highlighted for the hazard, which can be problematic for a large county with multiple cities and towns. Alternatively, there are a few framework-related complications that can cause difficulties for the forecaster when issuing Fire Warnings in WarnGen, especially since there is no real capability to track the fire front. Because WarnGen is meant for storm-related hazards, tracking extremely localized and relatively slow-moving hazards can convolute the warning process for a forecaster, especially those with limited experience in issuing Fire Warnings. By whichever process is chosen, this is where local knowledge and forecaster best-practices are passed along to ensure the warning paradigm goes smoothly.

As the NWS slowly begins to transition hazard issuance into Hazard Services—a newer and more customizable warning suite compared to WarnGen—fire weather and non-weather emergency messages are roadmapped to be one of the final phases slated to become operational. This phase currently does not have a public schedule, although it is in early stages of development by the Global Systems Laboratory.

This presentation will discuss the history and past operational use of Fire Warnings, the current software practices for warning generation and dissemination, and the potential future capabilities needed to effectively communicate Fire Warnings in future operations.