OK-FIRE: A weather-based decision support system for wildland fire management in Oklahoma

Funded by a three-year grant from the federal Joint Fire Science Program, “OK-FIRE” is a weather-based decision support system which is being developed for and tested by wildland fire managers throughout Oklahoma and some surrounding states. Project participants include the USDA Forest Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, US Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, US Army Corps of Engineers, Natural Resources Conservation Service, National Weather Service, Oklahoma Forestry Services Division, and The Nature Conservancy. Programming support and web site development is provided by the Oklahoma Climatological Survey (OCS) in Norman, Oklahoma.

Using the Oklahoma Mesonet of 120 automated weather monitoring stations as a basis for current and past conditions and 84-h forecast output from the National Weather Service's NAM model for future conditions, OK-FIRE has a three-fold emphasis: (1) an expanded suite of real-time products for fire weather, fire danger, and smoke dispersion; (2) a dedicated, password-protected OK-FIRE wildland fire management web site to act as the delivery mechanism for the above products; and (3) regional training and customer support activities for the user groups involved.

Fire danger products are based on the Oklahoma Fire Danger Model, which is an implementation of the National Fire Danger Rating System to an automated weather station network platform (the Oklahoma Mesonet). The next-generation Nelson dead fuel moisture model is also being utilized. Smoke dispersion products utilize output from the Oklahoma Dispersion Model for estimates of near-surface dispersion conditions and National Weather Service forecasts of ventilation rate for estimates of boundary-layer dispersion. Fire weather, fire danger, and smoke dispersion products in OK-FIRE incorporate 84-h forecast output from the North American Model (NAM), which utilizes the 12-km WRF non-hydrostatic mesoscale model. Current/recent products, based on Oklahoma Mesonet data, are updated as follows: fire weather products (every 5 minutes), dispersion model products (every 15 minutes), and fire danger products (every hour). 84-h forecast output is incorporated four times a day, using the 00Z, 06Z, 12Z, and 18Z runs of the NAM.

OK-FIRE products utilize a browser plug-in (WeatherScope) developed at OCS. Three venues are available for both current/recent products and forecast products: (1) dynamic maps of Oklahoma, capable of zooming, animation, and road overlays; (2) site-specific charts (e.g., meteograms, firegrams); and (3) site-specific tables.

The debut of the OK-FIRE web site and its associated products occurred in September 2006. This was followed by eight regional computer lab training sessions around the state in fall 2006. Further development and beta-testing took place in 2007, followed by a round of nine computer workshops in fall 2007. As of early 2008, there were about 150 trained OK-FIRE users from our cooperator groups. During calendar year 2007, the OK-FIRE web site received almost 570,000 hits, which is quite impressive given the limited number of authorized users.