Mesonet connection, 02/2013, v.4 no.2

              connec t ion
OK-FIRE’s Widespread
Impact
ongoing drought and lack of soil moisture. James said
he uses the 84-hour Fire Weather Forecast daily to help
with his job.
“Mainly I use OK-FIRE to help develop staffing levels
for daily and weekend fire duty,” James said. “We are
just now getting into the prescribed burn game so it will
also be utilized heavily when trying to schedule burns
to meet both objectives and prescriptions.”
Another OK-FIRE user, Bob Hamilton, Director of the
Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, uses it often during the
prescribed fire season, mainly in spring, but also in the
summer and fall.
“The OK-FIRE site is great for me because it is one stop
shopping,” said Hamilton. “Now everything is under the
OK-FIRE umbrella, and it is easier to get to and more
efficient.”
Hamilton uses basic forecast information, OK-FIRE
products broken down graphically, and hour-by-hour
fuel conditions to get an idea of fire conditions. After a
fire, he reviews what actually happened and conditions
during that time frame, and prints the Mesonet and OK-FIRE
data to file for that specific event.
“We also monitor during the fire with our mobile
devices,” Hamilton said. “The accessibility is really
cool, and the forecasts and fire ecology tools are really
good things.”
Volume 4 — Issue 2 — February 2013
www.mesonet.org
THE MESONET’S OK-FIRE PROGRAM has a wide
reach across the state, impacting decisions made by
a wide range of users from your local firefighters to
state foresters. The tools provided by OK-FIRE help
prepare them for prescribed burning and wildland fire
situations.
“I use weather forecasts to predict fire behavior,”
said Jay Willis, Battalion Chief for the Stillwater Fire
Department. “On any day that we could be involved
with wildland fires, I print off a copy of the weather
forecast to take with me. As a fire department, we are
not normally involved with prescribed burns. We do,
however recommend against it when conditions are not
right.”
Willis said the tools he uses most are wind speed and
direction, relative humidity, ignition component and
other fire behavior indexes, and temperature. These
help him make decisions when it comes to incidents
like the Glencoe fire in August 2012.
“Several residences and outbuildings were lost, along
with crops, fencing, equipment and natural resources,”
Willis said. “Hopefully we get ground cover back before
the next large rain, or the damage will continue.”
Andy James, Southeast Area Forester for the Oklahoma
Forestry Services, has witnessed similar damages.
From hundreds of homes lost to thousands of acres
of timber, he attributes the devastation in part to the
–by Stephanie Bowen