Hi Hasan,

The interest of emergency authorities usually focuses on extremes of fire danger indices, they are not interested in low values.

The CLIMDEX proyect of the University of NSW has developed a number of indices to assess climatic extremes. Currently they recommend 27 core indices (The ETCCDI indices) to evaluate extremes, see "http://www.climdex.org/indices.html". Some of these indices can also be used to assess extreme fire danger conditions, for instance the average number of days in a month/season with values of CFFWI over certain threshold could be relevant to emergency authorities.

An illustration of the application of these indices is in:

Climate Futures for Tasmania: Extreme Events Technical Report (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/James_Bennett9/publication/236116527_Climate_Futures_for_Tasmania_Extreme_Events_Technical_Report/links/5403f9600cf23d9765a5d5e4.pdf).

Hope it helps,

Augusto

Technical Report Climate Futures for Tasmania: Extreme Events Technical Report

Dear Augusto,

Thank you for your interesting.

WIND, dear colleagues is most important, more so in mountainous areas. Seems to lack in most fire models. My statement is based on fire modelling (unpublished) following the wildfire in the attached.

Article From monospecific to mixed forest after fire?: An early fore...

Dear Hein Van Gils,

Thanks for your paper, I have downloaded it.

Hi Hasan

The Canadians have developed an additional measure, called the "Daily Severity Rating (DSR)", for this very purpose (Van Wagner 1970, after Williams 1959). It is determined from the daily FWI value (see Van Wagner 1987) and can be used to provide an average for FWI System conditions that is deemed better than averaging any of the individual FWI codes or indices. It also has the advantage that it can be averaged over any time period (e.g. weeks, months, fire seasons or years) to compare fire climate for different time periods or at different locations.

As well as being widely recognised in Canada (e.g. Stocks 1971, Harvey et al. 1986, Alexander and Stocks 1987), we have used it on numerous occasions here in New Zealand to develop fire danger climatologies, compare fire climate severity for different locations, and determine effects of climate variability (e.g. ENSO) and future climate change on fire danger (see technical reports below available on ResearchGate).

Van Wagner, C.E. 1987. Development and structure of the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index System. Government of Canada, Canadian Forestry Service, Ottawa, Ontario. Forestry Technical Report 35. 37 p.

Williams, D.E. 1959. Fire season severity rating. Canadian Department of Northern Affairs and Natural Resources, Forest Research Division. Technical Note 73. 13 p.

Van Wagner, C.E. 1970. Conversion of William’s severity rating for use with the Fire Weather Index. Canadian Forest Service, Petawawa Forest Experiment Station, Chalk River Ontario. Information Report PS-X-21. 5 p.

Stocks, B.J. 1971. Fire severity index distribution in Ontario 1963 to 1968. Canadian Forestry Service, Great Lakes Forestry Research Centre, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Information Report O-X-151. 18 p.

Harvey, D.A.; Alexander, M.E.; Janz, B. 1986. A comparison of fire-weather severity in northern Alberta during the 1980 and 1981 fire seasons. Forestry Chronicle 62(6): 507-513.

Alexander, M.E.; Stocks, B.J. 1987. Severity rating. In Status of the Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System (CFFDRS): a progress report by the CFS Fire Danger Group. pp 34-37.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299197509_A_fire_danger_climatology_for_New_Zealand

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299853797_Use_of_long-term_fire_danger_data_sets_to_predict_fire_season_severity

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299206075_Impact_of_climate_variability_on_fire_danger

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/298342845_Improved_estimates_of_the_effect_of_climate_change_on_NZ_fire_danger

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299207806_Fire_climate_severity_across_New_Zealand

Hope this helps,

H. Grant Pearce

Technical Report A fire danger climatology for New Zealand

Technical Report Use of long-term fire danger data sets to predict fire season severity

Technical Report Impact of climate variability on fire danger

Technical Report Improved estimates of the effect of climate change on NZ fire danger

Technical Report Fire climate severity across New Zealand

Dear Dr Pearce,

Thank you for your supplied sources.

I have also obtained the DSR metric, but Fire-Climatology needs only one value at each spatial point. For example, we use monthly or annual averages of temperature values while studying climatology. I wish to learn if one had applied any metric for reprsenting (proxy) fire-climatology (not meteorology).

Best wishes,