Updates to the weather information management system (WIMS)

In 1975, the first computerized version of the manual 1972 NFDRS was made available on a nationally accessible time-share computer system called AFFIRMS (Administrative and Forest Fire Information Retrieval and Management System). Three years later, the 1978 version of NFDRS was made available in AFFIRMS. In 1988 modifications were made to better assess how fire danger responds to drought in more humid climates with extensive live fuels. The 1988 updates were never made available in AFFIRMS because AFFIRMS was being retired.

In 1993, AFFIRMS was replaced by the Weather Information Management System (WIMS) as the processor of NFDRS information. NFDRS in WIMS includes the core 1978 version and the 1988 updates and is currently being used by most state and federal agencies. WIMS ingests hourly observations from approximately 1,800 Remote Automated Weather Stations (WIMS) across the United States, including Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, and Puerto Rico. Once each day, observations are checked for quality control and converted into an NFDR rating for the station.

Recently several significant updates have been made and others are in the works. This paper will highlight the development of WIMS's Alternate Gateway to allow other weather networks to be included in the National Fire Danger picture, the Dashboard User Interface, WIMS Web Services, and the implementation strategy of the Nelson Dead Fuel moisture model to alleviate the requirement for users to manually enter state of the weather every day.