 Useful weather information depends upon the generation of accurate forecasts and their timely distribution. It is then the responsibility of the person on the ground to take the time to listen to and have the knowledge and skills to comprehend the information. This information along with personal observations and local knowledge can then be applied. So how do you interpret the information in a fire weather forecast? How is it different when you read it versus listening to it over the radio? And how do you give it or receive it in a briefing? Rick Achoa works for predicted services at the National Interagency Fire Center. He has written many fire weather forecasts. We hope he can help you interpret the content of the forecast you see here and deliver every day. The main components of a fire weather forecast are first the headlines. The headlines could be a red flag warning, a fire weather watch, something real critical for the firefighters. And if I can explain what red flag warning is, a red flag warning is a combination of critical fire weather such as winds, dry lightning in combination with dry fuels. These warnings and watches are provided for firefighter safety. A warning, a red flag warning, means those conditions are either occurring or imminent. A fire weather watch means that those conditions may occur in the near future in the next 12 to 48 hours. The good warning or good watch has both a geographic location such as the Boise National Forest in addition to the particular fire weather zone number. The weather discussion will talk about the synoptic features such as cold fronts, high pressure ridges, low pressure troughs and so on that's producing the weather. A lot of times these forecasts are very detailed and very long and it's important for the listener to try and pull out what are the important things like cold fronts are very important, any kind of wind shifts, thunderstorms, turning hot or turning drier and things like that. So you should really be listening for those weather features that are really going to affect the conditions on your fire. The first element in a fire weather forecast is the sky weather and that will be the sky condition whether it's cloudy or clear or partly cloudy and the weather element like thunderstorms, rain, showers, fog, things like that. So pay particular attention to those things that are critical such as thunderstorms. The next element is temperature and they'll give you a range of temperatures for your particular fire weather area and they'll oftentimes give you a trend whether it's going to be 5 degrees warmer, 5 degrees cooler and so on. The next one is humidity. They'll give you again a range of humidity values along with a trend and after that is the wind. With the winds you'll get a variety. You'll get slope valley winds, ridge top winds, 20 foot winds and 20 foot winds are those winds 20 feet above the affected vegetation. So if you're dealing with an area with just grass it's going to be 20 feet. If you're dealing in timber it's 20 feet above the average tops of those trees there. Obviously if you're on a ridge top you want to listen for those winds. If you're down in the valley pay particular attention to those slope valley winds. The Haynes index is an index that combines stability and moisture and the values range from 2 to 6. 6 being high and so this index does not include things like wind or other factors like that. It's strictly a moisture and stability of that atmosphere close to the ground. So again what I'd be listening for there is if there's a Haynes of 5 or 6 moderate or high those are the times I'd be really concerned about. If it's a 2, 3 or 4 typically those are the lower ranges and typically there's not going to be an issue with stability or moisture. LAL's lightning activity level talk about the number of lightning strikes you're going to have over a given area. They range from 1 which is no thunderstorms to a 6 which is numerous thunderstorms typically dry. So again I'd be listening for values like 3, 4, 5, 6 those are the ones that are going to contain more thunderstorms. In addition to the thunderstorms listen very closely as to whether they're going to be wet thunderstorms, dry thunderstorms or a mixture. The mixing height basically tells the firefighter that lower atmosphere what is the depth of that atmosphere that's going to be well mixed. Typically in the afternoons it will be quite high it could be several thousand feet and at night typically those mixing levels come down quite a bit. They might just be a few hundred feet. That's important because the higher the mixing height the greater the instability and so with that you're going to probably see more fire activity, fire behavior with the greater mixing heights. Transport winds are important because you want to know where that smoke is going to be going. So the average winds within that mixed layer as to whether they're going to be coming out of the south or north and they'll give you a wind speed there. So if you have high mixing heights and high transport winds you're going to have pretty good smoke dispersion. Low mixing height, low winds are typically going to be smoke problems. The extended forecast there what I'd be looking for is anything out of the ordinary. Are there going to be thunderstorms? Are there going to be strong winds? Get an idea about whether it's going to be turning warmer or drier. So a lot of times the most interesting, the most significant weather is going to be occurring in the extended period so pay close attention to that. Fire weather forecasts are full of useful information and are readily available throughout the fire season. The next exercise is intended to provide an opportunity to translate a fire weather forecast into the form of a briefing. Your facilitator will now set up the exercise.