NATIONAL WILDFIRE COORDINATING GROUP
Fire Weather Working Team Meeting

Location:   East Great Basin Coordination Center – Salt Lake City, UT
Date:        April 29 -30, 2003

• Wayne Mitchell
• Tom McClelland
• John Snook
• Patti Hirami
• Rusty Billingsley
• Dick Bahr
• Pete Guilbert
• Deborah Holle
• Jim Erickson (Liaison to NWCG)
• Mark Barbo
• Miles Knight
• Rick Ochoa

• Larry Bradshaw
• Heath Hockenberry (Executive Secretary)
• Andy Bellcourt

• Ed Delgado – (reported 4/30)
• Greg McCurdy – (reported 4/30)
• Scott Birch
• Karl Zeller – (reported 4/29)
• Allen Deitz – (reported 4/30)
• Randy Hart (EGBCC Manager)

Agenda:

Update from NWCG on Working Team Organization – Erickson
Weather Station Numbering Procedures – Billingsly, Bradshaw
FCAMMS Update – Hirami
ASCADS 24/7/365 Availability – Hirami
NOAA Strategic Vision – Billingsley
New 10-4 Weather Service Policy Summary – Billingsley
Probabilistic Forecasting – Billingsley
NWCG Glossary Edits and Additions – Allen Deitz (Wednesday, April 30 8:30-9:30 am)
ROMAN and DRI data interfaces – Ed Delgado and Greg McCurdy (Wednesday, April 30 9:45-10:45 am)
Annual Operating Plan – monitoring and validation – Ochoa
Predictive Services Program – Ochoa

Add-on agenda items:

• Feedback Flowchart – Hirami
• RAWS Assessment – Karl Zeller
• RAWS Interagency Agreement – Dick Bahr
• NWS Role in RAWS Program – Rusty Billingsley
• Next Meeting?

Tuesday, April 29 – 8:30 am

• Membership
o Larry Bradshaw resignation presented to team with inclusion of suggested replacements.

• Replacement discussion – need to have some focus in support of the team direction. Consider having someone from FCAMMS or NWS research.

• Team Merger Question –
• Discussed in detail at last meeting and developed into white paper that was presented to NWCG. NWCG tabled the proposal until the parent group goes through a review of their organization and structure to occur at May meeting followed by further discussion at WFLC in June.
• Jim Erickson – Hold tight until further direction comes from parent group.
• Move to reexamine FWWT charter and more directly involve NWS with an end goal to set standards that the agencies can adopt and move forward.
• Issue in Charter where Chair is to rotate every two years which is different from other teams that have the chair appointed by NWCG. Option to keep Wayne as chair until NWCG determines what direction the working teams should take and how this will affect the FWWT. Continuity is the key issue the group should consider.
• Question on the effect of Homeland Security on NWCG and the wildland fire community.
• Wayne will stay on as chair.
• Identified the need to have Fire Behavior in the NWCG structure to further and standardized this program.

• Suggested joint FDWT and FWWT meeting in Zion NP, November 20th, 2003

• RAWS Issues –
• Forest Service Review of Remote Automated Weather Station (RAWS) Network an unbiased review. Ask for review of the (4/27/03) draft with comments to Karl by 5/16/03.
• Review copies to Tom McClelland, Patti Hirami, Mark Barbo, Rick Ochoa, Dick Bahr, (Additional copies – Deborah Holle, John Snook, Pete Guilbert)

• NWS role in RAWS –
• Boise web site as to who should keep this up as it is focused on a single individual at that specific NWS Weather Forecast Offices (WFO). Proposal is for NWS to get out of the RAWS data dissemination and pass that feed to some other activity. ROMAN get their data through the NWS feed.
• Responsibility for numbering system for WIMS weather stations. Follow-up with what Mike Barrowcliff started in the mid-90s. Problem with intelligent key problems in relational databases.

ACTION ITEM: Dick Bahr and Rusty Billingsley to develop white paper to forward to FDWT for concurrence and presentation to Predictive Services group in tasking this duty to the GACC Meteorologists. Establish of focal point and involvement of Predictive Service with field units.

• Develop guidelines for moving stations and when new numbers should be issued.

ACTION ITEM: John Snook, Pete Guilbert, Kolleen Shelley, Greg McCurdy, Scott Birch to draft paper on guidelines and criteria for station moves and when a new station is indicated.

ACTION ITEM: Patti Hirami to follow-up with WIMS Re-Engineering to incorporate this in the next revision.

• Suggest this be coordinated the Fire Danger Working Team to forward this to WIMS reengineering team.
• Concern for how the RAWS data will be ingested into the NWS system for use by the forecasters.
• Understanding of the role and responsibilities for data between Western Region Climate Center (WRCC) and Remote Sensing Fire Weather Support Unit (RSFWSU).
• Concern is not losing the functionality currently in the NWS RAWS web page.

ACTION ITEM: Rusty Billingsley to work with Ed Delgado (ROMAN) to see if this functionality can be included in ROMAN by next fire season.

• Updated Interagency Agreement between all the federal wildland fire agencies to support remote sensing and fire weather activity. Dick will get feedback from key state partners, California, Minnesota, Florida(?) as this agreement moves forward. The state partners come in under the State & Private Forestry side of the USDA-Forest Service.

• Weather Service Feedback flowchart
• Handout of Weather Service Feedback Flowchart
• How to handle feedback to forecasts received from NWS. Feedback is divided into two issue categories 1) Timeliness and 2) Support. Needs to be updated to reflect addition of GACC Meteorologists and restructuring of NWS-WFO, Lead Fire Weather Forecaster. Defined by “who to contact” then follow-up “if no resolution contact”.
• This document came from the Forest Service as they were hearing of problems from field users and the need to resolve those. It can be developed on an interagency basis.

ACTION ITEM: Patti Hirami, Rick Ochoa, and Rusty Billingsley will update Feedback handout and provide back to the FWWT.

• FCAMMS Update
• Web site demonstration
• http://www.fs.fed..us/fcamms/
• http://www.atmos.washington.edu/pnw_environ/
• http://www.atmos.washington.edu/gcg/smokeandfire/
• http://www.blueskyrains.org
• Attempting to take consortia developed modeling products from PNW and get programs implemented in the other four areas sooner…getting it implemented.
• ASCADS 24/7/365
• Diagram of data flow
• RAWS (User) – ASCADS (BLM-Phil Sielaff) – WIMS (FS-Jeff Barnes) – WFAS (FS-Research-Larry Bradshaw) with identified need for interaction between ASCADS and WIMS.
• Phase 2 of the WIMS Re-engineering being done by Mike Barrowcliff’s group while BLM is working on ASCADS Re-engineering.
• Need to find out what the user’s want from the systems and how they use it.
• Phil Sielaff assigned as Project Manager for ASCADS Re-engineering with Charles Kazimir as back-up.
• Patti Hirami leading issuance of survey to users during this operational season.
• Issue paper presented to NWCG with recommendation to consider it as a 24/7 operation.

• Forecast Standards Working Group
• Gary Curcio – issue of standards not having been adopted formally.
• Handout of this historic issue (tomorrow)

• NOAA Strategic Vision
• Signed March 2003, FY2003-FY2008 and beyond
• Focus for this group is Mission Goal #2 “Understand climate variability and change to enhance society’s ability to plan and respond” and #3 “Serve society’s needs for weather and water information.” Strategies and Measures of Success
• 10-4 Fire Weather Directive
• Currently the instructions are in review at the regions – expect sign-off by early May.
• 10-401 “Product Specification” changes, cleared several problems. Reference to non-federal non-wildfire removed and cleared up state/federal language.
• Language inserted to clarify updating of spot forecasts, i.e., spots are considered one-time requests. No requirement upon the NWS to stay focused on the area of the spot forecast and a need to issue updates if/when impending weather could influence the project area.
• Fire Weather Strategy needs to look at making available alerts in the windward direction based upon fire/incident location…used primarily by IMETs but has shown some applicability to prescribed fire operations. Predictive Services may need to play a role in tracking these activities. Alert notification in ROMAN. Communication link in GACCs to track location of fires/incidents to know when the activities are occurring. When need is great enough to generate Spot Forecast then need is significant to have this type of focus and attention.
• Discussion about need to watch the weather and update the forecast as needed. Example may be to look at the requirements in the aviation section requirements of the NWS policy. May look at implementation in AWIPS. Need to examine language about NWS direction to forecasters about this policy on tracking spot forecasts.
• Future workload on both the NWS and agencies to meet expectations of forecasts and tracking or active incidents needs to be considered and tracked both with technology and human resources.
• Fire agencies need to become aware of NWS policies on issuing and tracking forecasts and train field personnel about these policies.
• Replacement of ATMUs to All Hazards Meteorological Response System (AMRS)…ATMU now theodolite system. MicroREMS to FireRAWS to dispatch and all future care and feeding.

ACTION ITEM: Heath Hockenberry to change Wildland Fire Terminology to reflect changes with ATMU and AMRS.

• Non-federal non-wildfire language
• Originally found in appropriation language to NWS from Congress a number of years ago.
• Removed from policy as it has no legal basis other than in the year of the appropriation but is still the direction by the service.
• Statement going to NWS Headquarters as they work things out with the private vendors who may have issues with the service under the non-federal non-wildfire language. Direction to the states now is “hang-on” we’re attempting to work things out.
• Update on tomorrows agenda – be able to finish by end of day tomorrow.

Wednesday, April 30 – 8:30 am

• NWS Documents
• Handout National Weather Service Instruction 10-401 (October 4, 2002)
• Handout NWSI 10-401 – draft – March ?, 2003 dealing with Site-specific (Spot) Forecasts.

• NWCG Glossary Edits and Additions
• Introduction to the NWCG – IRM – Program Management Office
• Handout of PowerPoint presentation slides
• Handout of PMO pamphlet
• Handout of Glossary of Wildland Fire Terminology – Definitions by Custodial Group
• Handout of Glossary of Wildland Fire Terminology – Multi-Claimed Definitions by Custodial Group
  
• Handout of NWCG Glossary of Wildland Fire Terminology Glossary - Entry Change Process
• Handout of NWCG Glossary – Entry Change Request
• Handout of “The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly” – Wildland Fire Glossary Examples (FWWT)
• Group needs to retain the focus of who is the target audience for the glossary. Important is the range of users (wildland fire professionals to the public) and how each term needs explanation for each.
• Allen will provide current definitions in the Entry/Change process format.
• Heath will continue coordinating definition review.

ACTION ITEM: Team to review proposed glossary within the purview of the FWWT with comments to Heath Hockenberry.

• Real-time Observation Monitoring and Analysis Network (ROMAN)
• http://www.met.utah.edu/roman/
• New functionalities and interface. Now ported to LINUX for stability.
• Possible direction to achieve life-cycle maintenance of this project to keep it available field, predictive services, and management use.
• Fire Weather Monitor page - Quality Control (QC) set in original programming. Reference: QC Flag. Potential application for on-going fires where they can set thresholds and be able to watch what is happening in the area around the clock (24/7). Definite aid to fire managers.
• Question is the knowledge and training that has occurred to the field and the ability to use in decision support. Users Guide is being completed at this time and will be posted on the web as a PDF file.
• Option to link with FCAMMS as predictive, ROMAN as actual, and NWS as forecasts. Pete Guilbert brought up earlier publication by USDA-Forest Service showing services and how to obtain it which should be resurrected and updated.

ACTION ITEM: Resurrect USDA-Forest Service publication showing fire weather services (reference book) and how to obtain those products. Pete Guilbert to find and Tom McClelland to update.

• New page “Weather Near Fires” which comes from the ICS209 at NICC.

ACTION ITEM: Rick Ochoa to draft letter to support ROMAN as an NWCG sanctioned system that provides for the end user access to real-time weather data specifically to RAWS. This will be presented to NWCG by Jim Erickson at the May meeting.

• RAWS USA Climate Archive (WRCC-DRI)
• http://www.raws.dri.edu
• http://www.wrcc.dri.edu
• http://www.cefa.dri.edu/HourlyFD/
• Currently a limited amount of Quality Control (QC) but have retained the option to look at actual data from the station.

• Probabilistic Forecasting
• Informational Issue
• Cooperative venture between Rusty and Heath with more details available later. This presentation can be postponed until the next meeting.

• Forecast Standards Working Group
• Who is doing it and how is it being evaluated? Need to examine how parties in the agreement are systematically tracking products, decisions, and the quality of each and how they are effecting what we are doing. This would allow us to review how we’re doing at least annually when reviewing the annual operating plan.
• Handout of Annual Operating Plans: Monitoring and Validation
• California and Northwest example of the user assessment team to see if the products being provided are meeting the needs of the user. More important may be how weather information and forecast are handled in the decision process used by wildland fire managers.
• Letter from Gary Curcio with question of adoption of:
• Standards for Fire Weather Forecasts.
• Handout of Requirement For Accuracy and Resolution of Fire Weather Forecast Products
• Question would be a balance of forecast accuracy versus the data validation from the weather station that would meet NFDRS station standards. This would require agreement between the wildland fire management agencies and the NWS for stations within a forecast area meeting the requirements for doing validation and verification comparison.
• May be more important to look at what are our needs to define the accuracy requirements for each forecast type. Level of service should be uniform across the geographic areas both in weather forecasts and predictive services.
• Field needs to tell predictive services what is the standard needed in the products being used in decision making balanced with what is reasonable to achieve. What is the product (guidelines, standards, policy). If we are not meeting the standards how will we develop a program to meet the needs? Assess what is needed, prioritize what will be done, action plan to accomplish.
• Proposal for a task group at national interagency level to address Cohesive Fire Weather Strategy and how we should identify, monitor, analyze and verify those items needed by fire managers. Discussion about bring this in from the training side to get people involved in teaching it and adjusting to meet the user demands.

ACTION ITEM: Rick Ochoa to assemble and chair interagency task group to develop frame work for looking at user needs for the standards, monitoring, and evaluation of products from Fire Weather Program, Fire Danger, GACC Meteorologists, Predictive Services, and Fire Weather Forecasts. Then branching off to address how you handle AOP, training courses, feedback and adaptive management

• Predictive Services Program
• PowerPoint presentation
• Update and new products being produced by the group.
• Informational only No Action!

• Non-federal non-wildfire language (continued)
• Previous policy language specifying federal involvement (Crews, equipment, or cooperative protection agreement).
• Quick action? Meeting in November to come up with an answer. Things have not changed since the mid 1990s and the workload for spots will not increase significantly as long as the existing forecasts continue as produced.

ACTION ITEM: Heath Hockenberry to correct and post updated FWWT roster.

ACTION ITEM: Miles Knight to track down survey of private vendors queried for providing fire weather forecasts.

Adjourned 4:20 pm