Climate Information and the Wildland Fire Community - A Services Perspective

Climate is a key physical enabler of wildland fire - wet periods increase biomass fuels; dry periods cure biomass fuels; influences seasonal planning and organizational readiness; allows for or is a barrier to accomplishing annual prescribed fire objectives, and as a secondary effect it conditions fuels for smoke production and subsequent related potential human health impact, and is a factor of annual wildfire costs in terms of suppression and managed fire allocations and insured and uninsured losses. Since some form of fire is year-round in the U.S., climate indicators are used on a continuous basis ranging temporally from current to multi-year antecedent. Spatially, global teleconnections to regional seasonal patterns influence local conditions. Climate monitoring, prediction, and communication are critical services used to assess burning conditions and fire activity and to inform and establish resource availability. This presentation will review some commonly used climate tools, discuss how they are used to inform fire value-added products and decisions, and highlight communication pathways for information exchange.