New NOAA Tool Predicts Hourly Wildfire Hazards

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released a new tool that predicts wildfire hazards in the United States and can be used by emergency response officials and firefighters to improve their situational awareness. The tool provides an assessment of wildfire potential, updated hourly, based on modeled predictions of weather conditions, according to a NOAA press release.

Scientists from NOAA’s Global Systems Laboratory (GSL) and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder created the tool, which is called the Hourly Wildfire Potential (HWP) Index. The tool builds on the agency’s High-Resolution Rapid Refresh forecast model.

“We expect that this index can help forecasters anticipate sudden changes in wildfire activity, as well as predict wildfire smoke emissions, leading to improved decision support for fire management and enhanced communication with communities impacted by fire and smoke,” said Eric James, a GSL scientist.

For more information, refer to the NOAA press release. A paper about the HWP Index appears in the September issue of Weather and Forecasting.