Scientists at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrat
ion (NOAA)’s Global Systems Laboratory said it has developed an hourly assessment of wildfire potential across the U.S.
The Boulder, Colorado-based lab’s Hourly Wildfire Potential (HWP) Index, in development since 2019, provide
s frequent updates based of model-predicted weather conditions t
o forecast increases and decreases in possible fire activity, including the amount of emitted smoke, for fore
casters, land managers, emergency personn
el, and firefighters.
“There are lots of existing fire weather indices, but the novel thing here is to be able to predict hourly variability in fi
re activity related to the weather conditions,” said Eric James, a GSL research physical scientist. “Applying the HW
P to a weather model like the HRRR (High-Resolution Rapid
Refresh model) provides an inexpensive way to anticipate chang
s in fire activity without running a computationally expensive fire behavior model.”
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The experimental tool was created based on three years of
measurements of radiant heat captured by satellites flying over large wildfires in the western United States. It
then incorporates
predicted winds to estimate fire spread and intensity, humidity to estimate influence of atmospheric dry
ness on fuel moisture, and soil moisture derived from the HRRR’s advance
d land surface model to predict the response of flammable vegetation to precipitation and drought.
What sets HWP apart from other established fire indices is that it
’s the first index designed specifically for use with hourly, high-resolution,
storm-scale weather models, NOAA said.
Photo: This visualization displays conditions favorable for wildfire g
rowth across the U.S. on August 21. Credit: NOAA Global Systems Laboratory