OK-FIRE Planner Benefits Oklahoma Residents, Communities

First posted on 03-16-2010

Millions of acres of Oklahoma land are burned every year through prescribed burning and wildfires. As a program of the Oklahoma Mesonet, the state’s automated weather station network, OK-FIRE provides a tool that is beneficial for all types of fires.

The Fire Prescription Planner is one of the many products on OK-FIRE, a weather-based Web site for wildland fire management.

“OK-FIRE has many applications, but the main ones are wildfire, prescribed fire and smoke management,” said J.D. Carlson, fire meteorologist in the department of biosystems and agricultural engineering in Oklahoma State University’s Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources.

The tool can be found by visiting http://okfire.mesonet.org. After selecting the Fire Prescription Planner icon, users will be faced with a screen where criteria for variables of interest, such as temperature, relative humidity, smoke dispersion conditions, wind speed and dead fuel moisture can be entered.

After entering the desired conditions, Fire Prescription Planner users select a nearby Mesonet location, and then view an hourly forecast table out to 84 hours based on the North American Model of the National Weather Service.

The forecast table will have sections colored red for the hours when the specific conditions are not met, and green for the hours when they are.

“It’s important to keep checking the planner as the time of interest approaches, as there is a lot more uncertainty the farther out in the 84-hour forecast period you go,” Carlson said.

Many public officials have found the planner to be quite useful.

“The Fire Prescription Planner has served as a valuable tool to NRCS and our clients,” said Steve Glasgow, USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service state grazing land specialist. “It enables us to better assist our clients in planning their prescribed burns by giving us the ability to establish specific burn conditions and look into the future for appropriate burn days.”

The OK-FIRE program has seen a steep acceleration of usage as the “hits” for 2009 increased 423 percent over 2008.

“I visit with producers about the possibility of burning their pastures for brush control or this winter about using prescribed fire to turn the ground black to encourage earlier grass growth in light of dwindling hay supplies,” said Marty Montague, OSU Extension specialist in Choctaw County. “I use it at least once a week.”

The planner can also be used by fire departments to check upcoming dangerous times when a wildfire could occur.

“We do use the planner here at the fire department,” said Carl Hickman, Mustang Fire Department Fire Chief. “We look at it everyday to determine whether or not we will allow citizens, in certain areas of town, to burn.”

Depending on the criteria entered, the planner shows users good windows to burn, or just as importantly, windows of time where there is high fire danger.

“I use the Fire Prescription Planner when talking to rural fire department personnel with regard to the level of fire danger when the dead fuel moistures are low,” said Montague.
OK-FIRE is not open to just public officials, as many private landowners have used the planner themselves.

“I’ve been using the prescription planner for about a year now and find it a useful tool in the decision making process for prescribed burns or any other activity which wind is a variable,” said Woodward County landowner, David Story.

For new Fire Prescription Planner users, there is a HELP icon at the bottom of the table in Step 1. Also, each variable listed in the table has a link to more information.

Users should also note that OK-FIRE training workshops will be offered in the fall throughout the state; information should be available on the OK-FIRE home page in late summer.

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