Weather and Climate Information for Southwest Wildfire Management

Working closely with wildland fire managers in the Southwest, CLIMAS researchers are exploring how to increase the impact of weather and climate information for wildland fire decision making. Initial research revealed limits to how weather and climate information is used in Southwest wildland fire management decisions. Working intentionally to deliver a useful and usable tool the team then developed the Burn Period Tracker. This tool provides real-time, location-specific visualizations of burn periods—the number of hours per day conducive to burning—for wildland fire managers across the Southwest. The Burn Period Tracker is now one of the suite of tools and information sources on Southwest Coordination Center website.

In summer 2025 the CLIMAS project team began a new phase of work that is focused on understanding how the weather and climate research communities can more effectively engage with and support the US wildland fire management community with science-based information to support their decisions.

CLIMAS Lead: Dan Ferguson

Research Team: Michael Crimmins, George Frisvold, Chuck Maxwell, Tristan O'Mara

Partners: Southwest Coordination Center

Publications

Crimmins, M. A., Maxwell, C., Ferguson, D. B., & Frisvold, G. B.. (2024). Burn Period: A Use-Inspired Metric to Track Wildfire Risk across Arizona and New Mexico in the Southwest United States. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, 63(12), 1559–1568. https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-24-0067.1

Frisvold, G. B., Zhang, N., Crimmins, M. A., Ferguson, D. B., & Maxwell, C.. (2024). Demand for Information for Wildland Fire Management. Atmosphere, 15(11), 1364. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos15111364

Ferguson, D. B., Frisvold, G. B., Maxwell, C., & Crimmins, M. A.. (2024). How Are Weather and Climate Products and Decision Support Systems Used in Wildland Fire Decision-Making in the U.S. Southwest?. Weather, Climate, and Society, 16(4), 789–802. https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-24-0069.1

Media

Climate Assessment for the Southwest, "Burn Period Tracker - A Simple Tool Making a Big Impact," 5/30/2025.