Large Fire Probability

Fire Potential Indexes

Large Fire Forecasts

Ignition Forecast

Extreme Event Forecast

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USGS EROS, in conjunction with the USFS PSW and Bob Burgan (USFS retired), has developed several new products for understanding and forecasting the probability of large wildland fires on federal land.

The forecast fire potential index and large fire forecast products are described by Preisler,et al. in "Forecasting Distributions of Large Federal-lands Fires Utilizing Satellite and Gridded Weather Information"

Existing products are utilized, specifically Relative Greenness (RG), the Fire Potential Index (FPI), and 7-day weather forecasts from the National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD) to produce 7-daily forecast maps of FPI, plus four large fire probability maps, and a table that presents the probability of large fires by Geographic Area Coordination Center (GACC) areas of responsibility. Example map product is shown in Figure 1. All maps and the table are updated daily.

1. Large Fire Probability Map: The percent chance that a fire at least 1 acre in size will grow to exceed 100 acres (based on present FPI values).
2. Ignition Forecast Map: Expected number of 1+ acre fires per 100,000 square kilometers, per week (based on historic fire occurrence frequencies)
3. Large Fire Forecast Map: Expected number of 100+ acre fires per million square kilometers, per week (based on present FPI values and historic occurrence frequencies)
4. Extreme Event Forecast Map: Expected number of fires that will exceed 5000 acres, per million square kilometers, per week (based on present FPI values and historic occurrence frequencies).