What you need to know about... fire weather

              article revised August 2010
The OK-FIRE Web site provides free fire weather information to fire managers across Oklahoma.
Fire Weather What you need to know about ...
Fire management is extremely important
to agriculture and natural resources. An
unexpected fire can be disastrous to your
crops, animals or structures, but a planned
fire can cycle nutrients, control disease and
renew the landscape.
About 2.5 million acres of wildlands are
typically burned in Oklahoma every year,
10 percent by wildfire and 90 percent by
prescribed fire.
When it comes to fire weather in Oklahoma,
no tool is more useful than OK-FIRE, a
Web site designed for wildland fire managers
throughout Oklahoma.
OK-FIRE is a FREE weather-based decision
support system with applications in both
wildfire and prescribed fire. The site utilizes
the Oklahoma Mesonet for current and past
weather conditions and the 84-hour North
American Mesoscale model forecast for future
conditions. OK-Fire can be found at
http://okfire.mesonet.org
OK-FIRE is committed to helping
Oklahomans manage wildfires and prescribed
burns by providing various products for fire
weather, fire danger and smoke dispersion.
Regional training and customer support are
provided to help educate users about OK-Fire
and different fire weather components.
Important fire weather product information is
on the back of this sheet. More information
can be found about these products and others
on the OK-FIRE Web site under “Product
Information.”
Contact Info
If you have any questions about fire weather
or OK-FIRE please contact
Dr. J.D. Carlson
Fire Meteorologist
405-744-6353
jdc@okstate.edu
Photo by Todd Johsnon