NOAA Fire Weather Testbed Launches First In-Person Evaluation

To enhance impact-based decision support services to core partners before, during, and following wildland fires, an operations-to-research-to-operations testbed utilizing both physical and social science perspectives is needed. In response, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) established the Fire Weather Testbed (FWT) at NOAA’s Global Systems Laboratory (GSL) in Boulder, Colorado in 2023 with support of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the 2022 Disaster Relief Supplemental Act and Congressionally allocated base funding. This Nowcast overviews the guiding mission of the FWT to serve as a ‘knowledge translation platform’ to link the many partners involved in wildland fire with the weather community. It next summarizes our first in-person evaluation, conducted in June 2024. This week-long evaluation involved NWS meteorologists and state fire partners participating in simulations and accompanying surveys, roundtable discussions, and focus groups. The evaluation aimed to assess the usability and utility of three emergent products and services: i) the Next Generation Fire System (NGFS), an automated satellite based fire detection capability accompanied with hotspot notifications disseminated by NWS meteorologists to partners, ii) an extension of the Integrated Warning Team (IWT) approach for tactical wildland fire operations, and iii) the Tactical IWT approach for collaboratively issuing Fire Warnings between the NWS and partners. The integration of these findings in a forthcoming FWT report will inform product development and operational support.