Long Term Fire Analyst, LTAN

Duties

• Assists in the burn plan development and review before implementing.
• Provides appropriate historic weather information.
• Obtains weather forecasts, updates and special advisories; document local weather before and during the fire; and communicate with Meteorologist.
• Establishes and maintains effective communications with appropriate personnel, such as supervisors, Fire Effects Monitor, crewmembers, or adjoining forces.
• Establishes a system to monitor fire behavior, first order fire effects, weather data before (if possible), during and after ignition.
• Assesses real-time observations of fire behavior and immediate fire effects, and recommend tactical adjustments.
• Identifies fuels outside of standard models because of depth, loading arrangement, or kind of fuel; and adjust predictions accordingly.
• Analyzes observed and predicted fire behavior to make adjustments to fuel models or the assumptions used in the fire behavior calculations.
• Estimates wind speed and direction at any time and location over a large area of varying topography, given a fire weather forecast.
• Assembles information and calculate fire growth from a line source of fire over an extended time period.
• Recognizes and describes special conditions that promote extreme fire behavior.
• Calculates the rate of spread, flame lengths (fireline intensity), heat per unit area, burn size (area and perimeter) for selected time periods for a burn starting from a point source and be able to plot the burn area and perimeter on a map.
• Predicts the rate and direction of fire spread on slope with winds at various angles on the slope.
• Employs appropriate solutions for burns of extended durations.
• Provides assessment of risk of a rare fire spread, significant smoke, and/or season ending event for long duration fires.
• Synthesizes the data sets from a number of local weather stations for useful inputs to fire behavior calculations for various locations.
• Monitors smoke emissions for health, safety, and vista impairment.
• Locates proper sites for, and identify appropriate equipment for weather data collection.
• Prepares written prescribed fire behavior forecast within the time frame specified by the supervisor.
• Provides formal briefing to appropriate personnel.
• Provides fire behavior and fire effects summary for the fire(s).

Position Knowledge and/or Requirements

• S-390, Introduction to Wildland Fire Behavior Calculations
• S-490, Advanced Wildland Fire Behavior Calculations
• S-590, Advanced Fire Behavior Interpretations
• S-492, Long Term Fire Risk Assessment
• S-493, FARSITE: Fire Growth Simulation