Upgrades to the Great Lakes Fire and Fuels System

The Great Lakes Fire and Fuels System is a web-based set of tools developed to integrate weather, fire danger and fire behavior information for the Great Lakes region of the United States. Weather parameters obtained from selected observational networks are combined with operational high-resolution gridded analyses and forecast products from the United States National Weather Service. Fuel moisture codes and fire behavior indices in the Fire Weather Index subsystem of the Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System are computed from these sources for current and forecast conditions. Applications of this Great Lakes Fire and Fuels System are demonstrated for the 2012 and 2013 fire seasons. Recent improvements to the System, including grass fire indices and higher resolution analysis and forecast grids, are evaluated.