Project details
In 2009, the NCLFA partnered with the Rocky Mountain Research Station to work on developing a prototype fire growth and perimeter database. Currently, the national interagency fire occurrence database includes only discovery date and final fire size, not fire growth or progression maps that can be used to relate fire danger indices to daily or significant fire growth. The period of significant growth is used to look at weather factors used to generate National Fire Danger Rating (NFDRS) indices and to predict future fire growth. The proposed database will help fire researchers establish relationships between historic weather and fire growth, which will help them to make predictions about fire potential as the climate changes. Researchers are especially interested in identifying changes in frequency of reaching trigger points that indicate increased fire behavior. This project will result in: a prototype method for retrieving national fire growth and perimeter data and a proof-of-concept database that allows researchers to answer questions about fire potential and fire behavior in climate change.
Principal Investigator: Lee Macholz
Project staff: Valentijn Hoff
