Program for Climate, Ecosystem and Fire Applications

The Desert Research Institute program for Climate, Ecosystem and Fire Applications (CEFA) partners and collaborates with numerous federal, state and international wildland fire and land management agencies by providing data, information and decision-support tools for planning and policy. The functions of CEFA include: 1) Perform studies and applied research to improve the understanding of relationships between climate, weather, fire and ecosystems; 2) Develop decision-support tools for fire applications incorporating climate and weather information; 3) Serve as a liaison between the fire, natural resource and scientific research communities by providing product training, education, science delivery, and eliciting user feedback; 4) Provide experimental fire weather, fire danger, fire behavior and smoke dispersion/transport forecasting products for operations and research; 5) Perform societal interactions studies emphasizing partnerships and the role of climate in planning and policy; and 6) Provide climate and weather information directly for fire and ecosystem decision-making and strategic planning. This poster presentation provides a brief summary of CEFA projects.