NOAA's Fire Weather Research and Services Improvement Initiative

NOAA's proposed Fire Weather Services Improvement Initiative, crafted by NOAA's Oceanic and Atmospheric Research office and the National Weather Service are responding to documented gaps in the science and technology available to the Nation's fire weather, land management, and emergency management communities in their efforts to protect life and property, promote firefighter and public safety, and maintain the stewardship of America's public wildlands. OAR and the NWS have long collaborated to bring science and technology to the Incident Meteorologists trained to support fire incidents in the field. The Initiative proposes to address the recognized and urgent need for a well-coordinated infrastructure of assimilation, modeling, and outlooks developed and maintained within the NWS/NCEP, refined scientific and technology research to address capability gaps by OAR, a feedback loop to integrate lessons learned, and the need for a testbed in the future that quickly focuses on the integration and transition of new data sources and forecast tools into operations. This talk will outline the research program, the operational components and our agency partners.