CEMS ECMWF - Fire Danger Indices

The Fire Danger Indices dataset is produced by the European Center for Medium Range Weather forecast (ECMWF) for the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) on behalf of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS).

The Copernicus program distributes the Fire Danger Indices via the Copernicus Climate Data Store.

Technical Background

The fire danger indices are calculated by the Global ECMWF Fire Forecasting model (GEFF) from numerical weather prediction (NWP). The GEFF outputs characterise different aspects of fire danger conditions, their relationship is describe bellow.

A complete description of the GEFF multi-model platform can be found in the following articles:

• Di Giuseppe, Francesca, et al. “NWP-driven fire danger forecasting for Copernicus”. ECMWF Newsletter. (2016): 34-39.

• Di Giuseppe, Francesca, et al. “The potential predictability of fire danger provided by numerical weather prediction.” Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology 55.11 (2016): 2469-2491.

• Di Giuseppe, Francesca, et al. “Fire Weather Index: the skill provided by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts ensemble prediction system.” Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences 20.8 (2020): 2365-2378.

More details on the Fire Danger Indices can be found in the Copernicus Climate Data Store Fire Danger Indices product user guide

Downloading Dataset

Copernicus Climate Data Store (CDS): You can access the Fire Danger Indices historical dataset via the Climate Data Store Fire Danger Indices page.

Fire Danger Indices dataset used in Pyro-Risks Training

from pyro_risks.datasets import GwisFwi
fdi = GwisFwi()

Datasets Descriptions

DATA DESCRIPTION
Data type	Gridded
Horizontal coverage	Global
Horizontal resolution	0.1°x0.1°; Native resolution is 9 km.
Vertical coverage	From 2 m above the surfacelevel, to a soil depth of 289 cm.
Vertical resolution	4 levels of the ECMWF surface model: Layer 1: 0 -7cm, Layer 2: 7 -28cm, Layer 3: 28-100cm, Layer 4: 100-289cm Some parameters are defined at 2 m over the surface.
Temporal coverage	January 1981 to present
Temporal resolution	Hourly
File format	GRIB
Update frequency	Monthly with a delay of about three months relatively to actual date.

Full description of the dataset variables is available on the Copernicus Climate Data Store Fire Danger Indices page.

Name	Units
Build-up index	Dimensionless
Burning index	10ft
Danger rating	Dimensionless
Drought code	Dimensionless
Duff moisture code	Dimensionless
Energy release component	25Btu ft2 -1
Fine fuel moisture code	Dimensionless
Fire daily severity index	Dimensionless
Fire danger index	Dimensionless
Fire weather index	Dimensionless
Ignition component	%
Initial spread index	Dimensionless
Keetch-Byram drought index	Dimensionless
Spread component	Dimensionless

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the use of data generated using Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2020.