Air Sensor Toolbox for Citizen Scientists, Researchers and Developers: This website provides information for citizen scientists and others on how to select and use low-cost, portable air sensor technology and understand results from monitoring activities. The information can help the public learn more about air quality in their communities.
AirFire: In managing wildfires, managers must make decisions in the face of great uncertainty and complexity. PNW researchers are working on models and tools to assist managers in these decisions. This includes developing better predictions of local fire weather, more accurately predicting fire behavior and smoke dispersal, and providing information and decision tools to fight fires cost effectively and safely. Better predictions mean more cost-effective decisions about deployment of firefighting resources and increased firefighter safety. This page highlights these key tools.
AIRPACT: The goal of the AIRPACT (Air Indicator Report for Public Awareness and Community Tracking) project is to provide timely air quality (AQ) information to people in the Pacific Northwest region.
ArcFuels: Streamlined fuel management planning and wildfire risk assessment system which creates a trans-scale (stand to large landscape) interface to apply various forest growth and fire behavior models within ArcMap to design and test fuel treatment alternatives.
BehavePlus: PC-based fire modeling system that describe fire behavior, fire effects, and the fire environment.
BIOPAK: Menu-driven package of computer programs that calculate biomass, area, height, length, or volume of plant components and biomass by fuels size class.
Climate Forest Vegetation Simulator: Provides forest managers with a tool for considering the effects of climate change on forested ecosystems.
Consume 4.2: Consume predicts fuel consumption, pollutant emissions, and heat release based on fuel loadings, fuel moisture, and other environmental factors.
FARSITE: Fire behavior and fire growth simulator incorporating spatial and temporal information on topography, fuels, and weather.
FERA Digital Photo Series: On-line natural fuels photo series to help managers appraise fuel and vegetation conditions.
Fire and Fuels Extension of FVS (FFE): Models predictions of potential fire behavior and effects and estimates of snag levels and fuel loading over time.
Fire and Smoke Map: The Fire and Smoke Map displays information on ground level air quality monitors recording fine particulates (PM 2.5) from smoke and other sources, as well as information on fires, plume locations, and special statements about smoke issued by various sources.
Fire Effects Information System (FEIS): The Fire Effects Information System is an online collection of reviews of the scientific literature about fire effects on plants and animals and about fire regimes of plant communities in the United States.
Fire Emission Production Simulator (FEPS): Designed to help managers estimate and mitigate the rates of heat, particles, and carbon gas emissions from controlled burns of harvest slash.
First Order Fire Effects Model (FOFEM): Program for predicting tree mortality, fuel consumption, smoke production, and soil heating caused by prescribed fire or wildfire.
FlamMap: Fire behavior mapping and analysis program that computes fire behavior characteristics over a landscape for constant moisture and fuel conditions. To be used with FARSITE.
Forest Sector Carbon Calculator: Provides users a way to compare short- and long-term effects of forest management practices, wildfire, and forest product development on forest carbon stores.
Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS): A family of forest growth simulation models calibrated for specific US geographic regions. FVS can simulate a wide range of silvicultural treatments for most major tree species, stand conditions, and forest types.
Fuel and Fire Tools (FFT): Fuel and Fire Tools (FFT) is a software application that integrates the Fuel Characteristics Classification System (version 3.0), Consume (version 4.2), FEPS (version 2.0), Pile Calculator, and Digital Photo Series into a single user interface.
Fuel Characteristic Classification System (FCCS): Calculates fuel characteristics and fire potential fuel beds and is available for download.
Fuel-loading tool: Fuel-loading tool for piles and broadcast & underburns.
FuelCalc: FuelCalc is a desktop software application for determining changes in surface and crown fuel loading after thinning, pruning, piling and/or prescribed fire.
Hand-piled Fuels Biomass Calculator: Estimates the biomass of hand-piled fuels, leading to better estimates of smoke production.
IFTDSS version 3.0: IFTDSS is a web-based software and data integration framework that organizes previously existing and newly developed fire and fuels software applications to make fuels treatment planning and analysis more efficient and effective.
Interagency Smoke Committee (SmoC): This website offers tools for managing smoke such as smoke dispersion models, weather and smoke forecasts, and monitoring equipment and methods.
iTree: USDA Forest Service software provides urban forestry analysis and benefits assessment tools.
Landscape Treatment Designer (LTD): Program for fuel treatment planning to help design fuel treatment scenarios according to spatial and non-spatial objectives.
My Fuel Treatment Planner (MyFTP): Designed for planners working at the national forest district level (or similarly sized unit) to estimate costs, revenues, economic impacts, and surface fuels resulting from fuel reduction operations. It is only applicable to dry forest in the western US.
NASA Worldview: Interactive interface for browsing full-resolution, global satellite imagery. Supports time-critical application areas such as wildfire management, air quality measurements, and weather forecasting. Data is generally available within three hours of observation.
NetMap: Community-based watershed science system comprised of uniform digital watershed databases, analysis tools, and technical support materials, addressing a variety of watershed characteristics.
NOAA HRRR-Smoke: The HRRR is a NOAA real-time 3-km resolution, hourly updated, cloud-resolving, convection-allowing atmospheric model, initialized by 3km grids with 3km radar assimilation. Radar data is assimilated in the HRRR every 15 min over a 1-h period adding further detail to that provided by the hourly data assimilation from the 13km radar-enhanced Rapid Refresh.
Pile Calculator: The calculated developed by this project allows land managers to more accurately assess biomass in hand piles, leading to better smoke production estimates, improved burn scheduling, and more accurate compliance with the maximum allowable emissions limits as determined by various state smoke management plans.
Smoke Information for Oregon: This site is an effort by many city, county, tribal, state and federal agencies to coordinate and aggregate information for Oregon communities affected by wildfire smoke. The information is posted here by the agencies themselves while volunteers built and are maintaining the page.
Smoke Information for Washington: This site is an effort by many city, county, tribal, state and federal agencies to coordinate and aggregate information for Washington communities affected by smoke from wildfire. The information is posted here by the agencies themselves while volunteers built and are maintaining the page.
Smoke Sense (mobile app): Smoke sense is an educational tool and information resource designed to increase people’s awareness of the health impact of smoke and encourage people to take action to protect themselves.
Template for Assessing Climate Change Impacts and Management Options (TACCIMO): A web-based tool that connects forest planning to current climate change science.
The Hot-Dry-Windy Index (HDW): A new fire-weather prediction tool based on the key atmospheric variables that affect wildland fire: temperature, moisture, and wind.
TOPOFIRE: A topographically resolved drought and wildfire danger monitoring system for the conterminous US.
Tribal Connections: Tribal Connections, a new interactive online mapping tool, was recently released by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). The map shows overlap between USFS-administered lands, current tribal trust lands, and tribal lands exchanged with the federal government prior to 1900. The mapping tool illustrates where historical treaties influence current land management planning and decision making.
US National Fire Danger Rating System (NFDRS2016): To develop consistency among protection agencies, the National Fire Danger Rating System (NFDRS) was developed in the early 70’s. It was designed around four basic guidelines. The research charter said the National Fire Danger Rating System would be:a. Scientifically based.b. Adaptable to the needs of local managers.c. Applicable anywhere in the country.d. Reasonably inexpensive to operate.
Web Fire Mapper: The NASA FIRMS Web Fire Mapper is now live, with VIIRS 375m data as well as MODIS. The two data sets have good agreement for hotspot detection, but the improved spatial resolution of the 375m data provides a greater response over fires of relatively small areas and provides improved mapping of large fire perimeters.
Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS): An integrated system that assists fire managers and analysts in making strategic and tactical decisions for fire incidents and incident reporting.
Wildland Fire Emissions Information System (WFEIS): The Wildland Fire Emissions Information System (WFEIS) is a web-based tool that provides users a simple interface for computing wildland fire emissions across CONUS and Alaska at landscape to regional scales (1-km spatial resolution).
Wildland Fire Management Research, Development & Application: The RD&A Program sponsors and guides the development and application of wildland scientific knowledge; develops decision support tools; and provides science application services to the interagency wildland fire community.
WindNinja: WindNinja is a computer program that computes spatially varying wind fields for wildland fire and other applications requiring high resolution wind prediction in complex terrain.
WWETAC Threat Mapper: Online system for detecting, mapping, and assessing wildland threats.