CEFA continues its role as co-organizer of two Predictive Services National Seasonal Assessment Workshops. The first of the 2005 workshops was held in Sheperdstown, WV during 19-21 January 2005 (Eastern and Southern areas), and the second was held in Phoenix, Arizona during 28 March - 1 April 2005 (Western States and Alaska). These workshops bring together climatologists, Predictive Service units, and fire managers from across the country to produce Geographic Area Coordination Center (GACC) seasonal fire outlook reports that are also integrated into a national outlook. For the eastern and southern area workshop, emphasis was placed on bringing together state agency representatives in addition to federal participants. The workshops are structured to foster communication between climate forecasters and fire specialists, and to enhance communication and cooperation between the representatives. Workshop reports and details are available at the Climate Assessment for the Southwest web site.

A prototype system of producing operational forecasts of fire danger daily out to fifteen days is being developed for the National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC). It incorporates national needs at NICC with operational forecasts produced by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). A national map of standardized energy release component (ERC) daily forecasts out to 15 days is being produced on an experimental, but operational basis. A U.S. 8 km grid climatology of ERC using fuel model G has been produced by the Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory (Larry Bradshaw). This is used in conjunction with NFDRS and the NCEP Global Forecast System meteorology model to produce standardized ERC fire danger forecasts. Standardized values allow NICC to readily assess and compare ERC across the country. The prototype system has been online at CEFA since summer 2003. This product can be viewed at: http://cefa.dri.edu/data/NatlERC/natlErc.html.

( Sponsor: National Interagency Coordination Center/USDA Forest Service )

In May 2004, the California and Nevada Smoke and Air Committee (CANSAC) dedicated the operations facility at DRI and in June experimental product generation began.   The weather products (along with a description of the computing hardware and products) are available at the CEFA web site in the CANSAC section. For an overview of CANSAC, please see the CEFA FY03 annual report (CEFA 03-02). Agency membership as of April 2005 included USDA Forest Service Region 5, USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station, Bureau of Land Management (California and Nevada State Offices), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, California Air Resources Board, and San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District. The CANSAC organizational structure includes the Board of Directors (BOD), Operational Applications Group (OAG) and the Technical Advisory Group (TAG).   General deliverables from the CANSAC project include: 1) Meteorological model forecast output as defined by OAG; 2) Web based application products as defined by OAG; and 3) Reports and/or presentations describing the functions and operations of CANSAC. Access to CANSAC products and information is available at: http://cefa.dri.edu/COFF/coffframe.php.

In the spring and summer of 2004, Southern California Predictive Services developed a 7-day significant fire potential product that was tested across the state during the fire season. This product relies on a fuel dryness index based on weather and fire danger elements as input, and is being adopted nationally by the Predictive Services Group as an important decision-support tool. In support of the project, CEFA developed a RAWS-MOS (model output statistics) product for California and Rocky Mountain Predictive Services. For 212 RAWS selected by these GACCs, statistical predictive regression equations were developed based upon 2001-2002 observations and National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Global Forecast System (GFS) 00 and 12 UTC model output. Twice daily 10-day forecasts of weather and NFDRS elements including maximum and minimum temperature, relative humidity and dew point, wind speed and direction, ERC, BI, IC, SC, 100-hour and 1000-hour fuel moisture, and the Haines index are produced operationally at CEFA. The forecasts are posted on the DRI ftp server for automated electronic retrieval by the agencies, and posted on the CEFA web site for direct access. In 2007, all GACCs will have this product. Access to the RAWS MOS products is available at: http://cefa.dri.edu/Operational_Products/MOS/txtmosfcsts.php .

The project goal is to address quantitative needs of drought information and impacts required for effective budget and resource planning of national fuels and fire management.  The first part of the project included acquiring a high spatial resolution precipitation dataset (PRISM generated) from the Oregon Climate Service's Spatial Climate Analysis Service, and computing several different monthly, standardized precipitation indices (SPI) for 4 km U.S. grid points for the period 1895-2003. Over 8 billion data points have been processed to assess the spatial and temporal extent of U.S. drought.  Currently in a validation phase, the Missoula Fire Lab generated a gridded climatology of energy release component (ERC; fuel model G) for all of North America using the North American Regional Reanalysis dataset.  In the current project phase, focus is given to monthly and seasonal prediction by relating the ERC climatology and drought to oceanic seasonal patterns (sea surface temperatures; SST).  SST is given emphasis here since it is a climate element known to drive atmospheric patterns, and numerous monthly and seasonal forecasts are readily available. Maps and analyses from this project will be posted on the CEFA web when completed.

( Sponsor: US Forest Service/National Interagency Fuels Coordination Group )

A new fire planning analysis process is being developed to assess the fire program needs of local fire agency units using an interagency approach. The first module of the Fire Program Analysis System (FPA) was implemented in October 2004. Critical to the FPA effort is the availability of high quality weather data, largely from RAWS. The primary sources of RAWS are the USDA-managed National Interagency Fire Management Integrated Database (NIFMID; daily) and the Western Regional Climate Center (WRCC; hourly) archives. However, neither of these archives has applied a rigorous data quality filter to the original data, nor do they provide estimated values for missing fields to generate a complete historical record. To optimize the performance of FPA, CEFA has undertaken a process of data quality checking and estimation. This project is a collaborative effort between the CEFA, WRCC and the five federal wildland fire agencies (BLM, BIA, FWS, NPS, USFS) as coordinated by the FPA national program office. The primary objective for the first phase of the project was providing RAWS data for four prototype areas in Alaska, California, Oregon and Mississippi that were processed via data quality checking and estimation of bad or missing values as needed. Work on this project continues in a second phase that includes RAWS data quality checking and estimation for over 1300 stations representing nearly all fire planning units, and validation of the estimation procedures. The North American Regional Reanalysis dataset has been used to generate a RAWS-like station across all of North America at every 32km for the period 1980-2006.  Further validation of this dataset is in progress. Access to the FPA RAWS is available at: http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/fpa