Fire Weather Index - a bit more aggressive

Hello,
Does anyone know how to make the Fire Weather index a bit more aggressive ( or offset )

Does changing the Byram-Keetch Drought index affect the FWI value ?

Cheers
Cyclone

I have asked Brian if it would be possible to allow users to just pick the FWI they want and bypass the numbers game. I didn’t get a response so not sure if he is considering my proposal or not. I cannot locate all the numbers needed for my area that would be needed to plug into the WD FWI setup. I did however find a site that shows the daily FWI for my area. Hence the reason I asked for the ability to just set the FWI at the level desired without having to juggle the numbers to get the pointer on the correct index. The FWI around here does not change much from week to week so manually updating it should not be a problem…

I understand the frustration of trying to get the FWI to match the actual conditions. I believe part of the problem is, after you enter your FFMC, DC, etc. and click to use those numbers, a clock-timer is set in motion. I think I read someplace that it takes 56 days before all accumulated data would be correctly influencing the FWI rating. Daily temps and rainfall are most likely the long poles in the tent as far as getting the FWI tracking local conditions.

Also, as far as I can tell the Byrum Keetch has no effect on the FWI. It is actually a number used to describe what would happen after a fire already started, ie. how hard would it be to put the fire out. I really over-simplified that, but thats the gist of what I have read about it.

i forgot about your idea dan, which is a good one, and i will do that today all going well

Sounds good…let me know when you have something…

a new 10.28r full install ready soon
that allows you to set the FWI pointer reading in the FWI part of WD

Your message is timestamped 05:32 PM and your icon says its now 14:19…and the timestamp on the r version is still at 02:20:08. Is this the correct version to download?

it should be there OK now
the time stamp is based on the the of upload in Europe…so thats one confusion :wink:

I have the right version now…I set the FWI and hit test and it updated the graphic and my website. Question, does ticking that box to use the setting override the normal calculations? So if I want to switch back I can just un-tick it and be back to normal? I hope so as that would allow me to setup and track how WD does with the settings without actually publishing them to the site. Very nice addition me thinks…thanks for adding this capability to WD.

its an override, and also overrides the final FWI value for the fwi.htm web page, and for wd’s fire graph
and yes unticking will then go back to the calculated value

Graphic is working, but noticed that my sig shows the fwi at 11. I set it to 15, should the tag show 15 or is it getting its data from someplace else?

ah, yes, that custom tag is getting it from the normal and not the override
I will have to do that…

but its sunday here, and off for a family walk, so later… :wink:

Thats fine Brian, it’s not a big deal :slight_smile:

try 10.28t zip, which wil be ready in an hour or so…

Looks good. Thanks.

I hope this helps Cyclone. It will allow you to set the current FWI without resetting your values (and the timer).

Ok, i’ll see how it goes.
September and October is our fire season, last week on my property, trees growing in between powerlines, and with the wind caused a spark in which the bushland underneath caught on fire, it spread very quickly !!!

Thanks

[quote author=NorCal Dan link=topic=11026.msg83564#msg83564 date=1126439868]
Looks good.

I don’t do any calculations. I was unable to locate the FFMC, ISI, DMC, DC, and BUI figures on the internet for my location.

I was able to locate a graphic that shows the FWI level for my area http://www.fs.fed.us/land/wfas/wfas23.html. I look at the graphic and set my FWI to the level shown on the map for where I live. Works good for me as we do not get rain in the summer and the FWI changes happen slowly.

If I knew how the FFMC, ISI, DMC, DC, and BUI figures were obtained, and if it only required me to add a moisture and temp sensor array to my system, I would love to be able to generate my own FWI.

I think the factors in determing the FWI are too tight,
for example today and by the fires around here lately

max temp 29.6c
max gust 38.7 kmh
min hum: 31 %
no rain for 16 days and its 45 days since we had rainfall over 5 mm

ok, today the FWI went from 0.9 to 3.4, the main factor was the ISI it went from 2.0 to 4.5

Cheers

So your FWI is ‘low’, does that correspond to the conditions you have now? Do you have any agencies that publish the FWI for your area so you can compare your data? From the sound of your post I would think the fire danger would be higher than ‘low’ if you are having numerious fires.