Drought indices and climate relationships with wildland fire characteristics for use in fire business

Relationships between climate and wildland fire can be useful for the fire business community, including personnel on the scene of a fire. It is difficult to bridge the divide between the scientific research and operations however. One recent successful method that has been developed is the “pocket card” that illustrates both climatological and memorable fire weather indices that are applicable to specific management areas. However, fire weather indices included on the pocket card are usually limited in their utility to assess antecedent climate conditions, which have important implications for fuel conditions that favor the occurrence of large fires. To bridge the gap between climate information and fire management, we have further developed the pocket card concept to include traditional climatological and drought index information, such as PDSI or SPI, and relating these to fire occurrence and characteristics of large fires. Climate and drought information, in addition to the fire weather indices, could serve as indicators or “warning signs” to look for in the potential of large fire development. These products will be made available to operations staff in a concise and user-friendly format that can be used at the incident level. Data used in the development of these products include 4-km monthly data and drought indices from PRISM and the federal fire database.