Fire Danger Rating

[profirefighter]

Good morning all...couple of minor points of clarification on cooldude posts....

The Wildfire Management Branch has over 200 weather stations across the province that we use for predicting fire beahviour and fire danger.

AS far as interpteting the indices generated by these stations....

FFMC (Fine Fuel Moisture Code) represents needles,twigs, grass etc that is extremely sensitive to daily weather changes. It expresses ease of igntion and fuel flamability.

FFMC <77 Generally a fire will not start without a concerted effort
77 to 86 Approx. 50% of igntion sources will start fires
>86 Easy igntion of fuels
> 94 100% of ignition sources will ignite forest fuels.

DMC (Duff MOisture code) represents the duff layer (2 to 4 inches deep) expresses consumption of mid depth fuel layers and medium sized woody debris.

DMC <35 Do not expect a great deal of involvement in this layer..Above this level one can expect more intense fires.


DC (Drought Code) Moisture content of deep (5 to 10 inch) duff. Expresse4s seasonal drought on forest fuels and hte amount of smouldering tha twill occur in deep duff and large logs.

DC 0 to 300 Very little involvement
300 to 450 Increased involvement with fires becoming more intense and mop-up problems occurring.
500+ Extensive involvement of the fuel layer. Fires are intense with difficult mop up problems, due depth of hte fires

So there is our forest fire danger rating interpretation lesson for the day

You can not just look at one of the indices and come up with a danger rating, there is more to it than that....

Hope you find this information helpful....

[Frisk]

Thanks for sharing, profirefighter! I was wondering how it all worked.

[profirefighter]

Here is a link if you wish to do more reading....

http://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/en_CA/back ... ummary/fdr

[Frisk]

Danger map today. What a crazy jump for the Kamloops center, eh? The forecast is all sun for the next 7 days, I would not be suprised if the Kamloops center is all orange and red by August 3rd.

[Frisk]

Today is B.C's highest danger rating this year.

[Glacier]

Here is how this "low fire season" compares to the previous two years (for Sept 7). Clicking the pictures makes it easier to view them...

2009

2010

2011

[Frisk]

It's amazing when you compare all the maps. Normally the fire season should be coming to a end by now, not this year.