Calibration and evaluation of the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index (FWI)  System for improved wildland fire danger rating in the United Kingdom

de Jong, Mark C.; Wooster, Martin J.; Kitchen, Karl; Manley, Cathy; Gazzard, Rob; McCall, Frank F.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-16-1217-2016

Articles | Volume 16, issue 5

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-16-1217-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-16-1217-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 16, issue 5

Research article

|

30 May 2016

Research article |

| 30 May 2016

Calibration and evaluation of the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index (FWI) System for improved wildland fire danger rating in the United Kingdom

Mark C. de Jong, Martin J. Wooster, Karl Kitchen, Cathy Manley, Rob Gazzard, and Frank F. McCall

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Final revised paper (published on 30 May 2016)
Preprint (discussion started on 23 Nov 2015)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC C2505: 'Review of NHESS-2015-139', Paulo Fernandes, 06 Dec 2015
- AC C3363: 'Authors' response to P. Fernandes' review', Mark de Jong, 04 Apr 2016
RC C3186: 'Re: Calibration and evaluation of the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index (FWI) System for improved wildland fire danger rating in the United Kingdom', Anonymous Referee #3, 05 Feb 2016
- AC C3364: 'Authors' response to Referee 3', Mark de Jong, 04 Apr 2016
RC C3207: 'Review', Anonymous Referee #4, 11 Feb 2016
- AC C3365: 'Authors' response to Referee 4', Mark de Jong, 04 Apr 2016
EC C3370: 'Editor comment', Rosa Lasaponara, 08 Apr 2016

Short summary

We present a percentile-based calibration of the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index (FWI) System for the United Kingdom (UK), developed from numerical weather prediction data, and evaluate it using historic wildfire records. The Fine Fuel Moisture Code, Initial Spread Index and final FWI component of the FWI system show the greatest predictive skill for UK wildfires. Our findings provide useful insights for any future redevelopment of the current operational UK fire danger rating system.