Smoke Management - Tools

Smoke/Weather Forecasts

This webpage is a portal to forecasted smoke dispersion and fire weather information. Much of the information looks 3-days or 7-days in advance based on meteorological forecasting systems. Some tools provide seasonal outlooks based on climatological data.

Short-term (1 week) Smoke Dispersion Planning

National Fire Consortium for the Advanced Modeling of Meteorology and Smoke (FCAMMS) Smoke Dispersion Forecast Guidance - This product provides national forecast guidance of meteorological parameters (mixing height, ventilation index, transport winds, and Haines index) needed by decision-makers to support wildland fire and air quality managers. The smoke dispersion forecast guidance provides utility for wildfire management decisions, timeing and planning of prescribed fires and assessing potential air quality impacts of wildland fires. Products are available in 3-hrly, 12km resolution out 72 hours, and 6-hrly, 40km resolution out 7 days.

Seasonal Smoke Dispersion Planning

AQUIPT - The Air Quality Impacts Planning Tool (AQUIPT) is a web-based strategic planning tool designed to answer the question: "What are the likely downwind impacts from this emissions source (such as fire)?" AQUIPT combines dispersion modeling with climate information to provide probabilistic impact estimates. While we cannot say what the impacts from a prescribed fire this September will be, we can say what the impacts would have been if the fire had happened last September or the one before, etc. AQUIPT can model the daily impacts of an emission source over a range of days and years (AQUIPT currently has 27 years of data from 1979 through 2005) then combines the results into a probabilistic impact map for estimating future impacts.

VCIS - The Ventilation Climate Information System (VCIS) provides probabilities of good and poor ventilation based on 40-year climatological time series at 000 UTC and 1200 UTC each day. The generated values of wind, mixing height, and ventilation index cover the entire United States at a horizonatal grid spacing of 2.5 minute latitude/longitude (about 5 km), except Alaska where the grid spacing is fixed at 5 km x 5 km.

Fire Weather

NOAA NWS - The National Weather Service (NWS), a branch of the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), operationally produces various fire weather products.
- National Fire Weather Page: http://radar.srh.noaa.gov/fire/
- About NOAA's Fire Weather Program and Portal to current fire weather products: http://www.noaawatch.gov/themes/fire.php
NOAA ARL - The NOAA Air Resources Laboratory (ARL) provides current and forecasted meteorological products such as meteograms, windroses, and soundings at locations across the US.

Fire Consortium for the Advanced Modeling of Meteorology and Smoke (FCAMMS) - The FCAMMS operate regional and national scale smoke and fire research applications with a focus of delivering the science to the field.
Primary BlueSky Portal
- http://www.getbluesky.org/bluesky/sti/
- Products: Surface winds, PBL height, 10m temperature, Ventilation
California and Nevada Smoke and Air Committee (CANSAC)
- http://www.cefa.dri.edu/COFF/
- Products:10m winds, surface temperature and RH, precipitation, NFDRS products
Rocky Mountain Consortium (RMC)
- http://fireweather.sc.egov.usda.gov/
- Products:
  - Weather Planner
  - Fire Weather Information: mixing height, ventilation index, Haines Index, Fosberg Fire-Danger Index, Lifted Index and Dewpoint Temperature, surface temperature, RH, and winds, precipitation, cloud cover
  - FARSITE weather data
Eastern Area Modeling Consortium (EAMC)
- http://www.ncrs.fs.fed.us/eamc
- Products: BEHAVE Weather data, Haines Index, Fosberg Index, Ventilation Index, mixing height, surface relative humidity, 10m winds, precipitation, 2m temperature
Southern High Resolution Modeling Center (SHRMC)
- http://shrmc.ggy.uga.edu
- Products: Fire Weather Index, Haines Index, Lavadas Dispersion Index and Transport Vectors, Low Visibility Risk Index, Mixing Height and Transport Wind Vectors, Ventilation Index