Three firefighters monitor the
Legon Lake Fire in December 2017. The FiRE
Tool 2.0 helps wildfire managers see when fire danger might be
abnormally high, even during the off season. This allows them a little more
time to prep the necessary resources needed to stop wildfires before they get
out of control. Photo Credit: Jeni Lawver with South Dakota Wildland Fire.
In the Black Hills, December is more
about shoveling snow than fighting wildfires. So, when the Legion Lake Fire
blew up on an abnormally dry December morning in 2017, it caught crews off
guard. Over the next several days the warm and windy weather pushed the fire to
more than 84 square miles in size, making it one of the biggest fires in Black
Hills history.
“Prior to this the largest December
wildfire was about 20 acres – so the intensity of this fire caught many of us
by surprise,” says Darren Clabo, Ph.D., a research scientist at the South Dakota School of Mines
& Technology and the State Wildland Fire Meteorologist.
The first minutes and hours of a
wildfire are the most critical time. A vast majority of all wildfires are
extinguished during the initial attack phase by the first crews to arrive on
scene. But, when fire conditions include
low humidity and dry fuels combined with high winds and temperatures, initial
attack crews can be overwhelmed. This is especially true during the non-fire
season when many wildland firefighters are off duty.
The Legion Lake Fire of 2017 is an
example of why an early warning system is so important. Giving fire managers more precision details
on where and when the fire danger might peak allows them to pre-position crews
to the most needed areas.
Clabo is one of a team of
researchers that include colleagues with NASA and NOAA who are using satellite
technology to give fire managers a heads up when the fuels are abnormally
dry. The team is creating the Fire
Risk Estimation tool (FiRE) 2.0. The tool was first
developed in the spring of 2017.
Clabo says this second version of the tool shows real potential to help
stop wildfires.
“The biggest concerns we have for
monitoring wildfires is assessing the status of fuels. Right now, it’s really
difficult to determine fuel dryness on a sub-county scale. The FiRE tool uses
satellite data to give our first responders a leg-up on suppressing fires as
quickly as possible,” says Clabo.
The tool is progressing from the
development phase to implementation. It is first being put into use over the Northern
Great Plains states of Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. The FiRE Tool
could be put to more widespread use in the coming years as development of this
technology continues.
You can see Clabo’s new blog “South Dakota
Fire Weather” for updates on the latest fire conditions and
wildfires across the state.