The sections below list helpful blog posts with tools and resources.
Community
Accessing Wildland Fire Research: A Guide for Fire Practitioners factsheet outlines practical ways for fire practitioners and other professionals to access fire science research.
After The Disaster Guidebook is a toolkit for landowners impacted by wildfire
After the Fire Toolkit for the Southwest: provides information on several existing post-fire resources to increase the capacity of individuals, communities, private landowners, and other resource managers to implement management actions to reduce risks associated with these post-fire hazards
Colorado Forest Atlas and Risk Reduction Planner: These applications provide Colorado citizens the best available information about forest conditions and Colorado State Forest Service activities
Colorado Post-Fire Recovery Playbook: provides guidance for counties, tribes, municipalities and water providers
Defensible is an app where every building is ranked on a scale from 1–100 based upon its relative risk to wildfire in the state
Emergency Preparedness Extension: The USU Extension Preparedness website provides resources and information to help individuals and families prepare for emergencies and disasters. It offers guides, checklists, and educational materials on topics like food storage, emergency planning, and disaster response.
FEMA Symbology for all hazard incidents and community lifelines
Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network invests in people and in place-based efforts to change relationships with fire. Together, we empower leaders, resource strategic action, develop tools, and create and share approaches to increase wildfire resilience
Fire Education Infographic: Colorado Forest Restoration Institute provides information regarding post-fire conditions in various fuel models in the Southern Rockies Region
Fire Forest: an exploration of forest fire and restoration in northern Colorado
Headwaters Economics: Evaluate the impacts of climate change on the most vulnerable communities
HEPA Filter Community Programs: A Whole Community Approach provides tips for starting an individual or residential community HEPA Filter Program
InciWeb is an interagency all-risk incident web information management system. It was originally developed for wildland fire emergencies, but can be also used for other emergency incidents
NFPA community risk assessment tool: these tools will enable you to quickly and easily generate and visualize all-around insights into the unique risks, hazards, and capacities in your community for a more effective data-informed risk reduction plan with community stakeholder buy-in
Smoke-Ready Toolbox for Wildfires: Resources and tools for wildfires that provide information on health impacts from smoke exposure, current fire conditions and forecasts and strategies to reduce exposure to smoke
Types of Forest Treatments – The Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborated created these slide decks to educate about forest treatments used by Fireshed partners
U.S. Fire Administration: Residents in wildfire-prone regions can make a difference in their wildfire safety by making effective changes to their homes and surrounding landscapes. These activities can be simple and often low-cost changes
USA Wildfires: map of current wildfire activity in the United States
Wildfire Public Information Map: manage your wildfire response with live feeds and sensor data provided by ESRI
Wildfire Risk to Communities is a free, easy-to-use website with interactive maps, charts, and resources to help communities understand, explore, and reduce wildfire risk
Fire Behavior
FireCLIME VA allows users to compare management strategies under changing climate scenarios
Fuel and Fire Tools (FFT) is a software application that integrates the Fuel Characteristics Classification System, Consume, FEPS, Pile Calculator, and Digital Photo Series into a single user interface
Interagency Fuel Treatment Decision Support System (IFTDSS) in an application designed to make fuels treatment planning and analysis more efficient and effective
International Multiproxy Paleofire Database (IMPD) is an archive of fire history data derived from natural proxies such as tree scars and charcoal and sediment records
Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS): designed to consistently map the burn severity and perimeters of fires across all lands of the United States
RealEarth is a data discovery and visualization platform developed at SSEC/CIMSS that collects, displays, and animates satellite, weather, earth science, and other GIS data
Fuels Management, Prescribed Fire, and Prevention
Colorado Forest Atlas is a web portal providing a suite of interactive mapping applications about Colorado’s forests.
Colorado open burn smoke permit guide
Colorado slash pile burning guide
Development and Application of the Fireshed Registry: is a resource for accessing both short and long-term FS R&D research data, which includes Experimental Forest and Range data
Hazardous Fuels Reduction Using Flame Cap Biochar Kilns: this fact sheet describes a do-it-yourself technique for making small-batch biochar
Nebraska prescribed fire guidelines
New Mexico open burning and smoke management
New Mexico open burning regulations
Piled Fuels Biomass and Emissions Calculator allows land managers to more accurately assess biomass in hand piles, leading to better smoke production estimates, improved burn scheduling, and more accurate compliance with the maximum allowable emissions limits as determined by various state smoke management plans
Quantitative Wildfire Risk Assessment (QWRA) for IFTDSS: a workflow and tools to perform a QWRA) from the project to the unit scale
Reducing Barriers to Use of Prescribed Fire in Privately Owned Forests
Smoke Management Guides and Resources (FRAMES): provides most recent guides and resources addressing smoke management, health and safety, and more
South Dakota prescribed fire guidelines
Types of Forest Treatments – The Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborated created these slide decks to educate about forest treatments used by Fireshed partners
Utah county burn permit
Wyoming open burning regulations
Wyoming smoke management information
Mobile Apps and Story Maps
Mobile Apps
Life With Fire Podcast: A podcast about our relationship with fire, and how to prepare for a future with wildfires
Mobile IRPG is designed to keep your Incident Response Pocket Guide (IRPG) in you pocket and easy to get to at all times
Wildfire Analyst Pocket (iPhone/Android): Enter data based on observed conditions and real-time fuels, wind, slope, moisture, and temperature data. Outputs are calculated immediately and displayed on an interactive 3D map supplemented by charts and tables.
Wildland Fire Analyst Desktop: Annual subscription single user license key software tool for analyzing wildfire behavior and simulation wildfire spread
Wildland Toolkit(iOS): Fire behavior checklists and calculations as well as IRPG safety checklists
WindNinja (iPhone/Android) tool provides improved capability to identify areas where local winds may either increase fire behavior or not influence fire
University of MT Fire Weather Calculator is a custom mobile app designed for managers and firefighters
Story Maps
Fighting For Firefighter Safety: Research to implementation: A JFSP success story
Fire Ecology: the study of the interactions of wildland fire with the biota and biophysical setting is the essence of fire ecology.
Fire Facts guide was created to provide basic wildfire information, background, terminology, and resources to increase your knowledge and understanding of wildland fire and the ways we can all contribute to better fire outcomes
Fire Forest: an exploration of forest fire and restoration in northern Colorado
Future Avoided Cost Explorer: Colorado Hazards: explore economic impacts of flood, drought, and wildfire in 2050
How Wildfires Threaten U.S. Water Supplies: To help water providers and land managers prepare for impacts from wildfire on water supplies, the U.S. Geological Survey is working to measure and predict post-fire water quality and quantity
Killer Heat in the U.S.: The Future of Dangerously Hot Days: This interactive mapping tool shows the rapid, widespread increases in extreme heat projected to occur across the United States due to climate change.
National Interagency Fire Center Flikr provides free domain photo galleries
Recovery Efforts for the Cameron Peak Fire: produced by the Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed & Kristin Karashinski with the Geospatial Centroid at CSU
Strategic, Cross-Boundary Wildfire Response Planning: enhancing preparedness, communication, and safety
USFS Community Wildfire Transmission: This story map describes ongoing research to identify the geography of community wildfire exposure from national forests
Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Restoration: Whitebark pine is a keystone species upon which many other plant and animal species depend
Wildfire in the Western United States: Past, Present, and Future: read to learn about how fire is a powerful land management tool to restore health and balance to wildlands as the climate continues to change
Wildland Fire Landscape Assessments: models allow researchers and managers to scale effects of treatments or management activities in space and time
Wildland Fuel Science: introducing a new era in wildland fuel science that integrates fire behavior and fire ecology
Planning / Training / & Adaptation
Adobe Color: build and design accessible color palettes
After the Fire Toolkit for the Southwest: provides information on several existing post-fire resources to increase the capacity of individuals, communities, private landowners, and other resource managers to implement management actions to reduce risks associated with these post-fire hazards
Climate Map Explorer Tool provides charts of historical and projected changes over time, and of the variation between different climate models, for all forests in the contiguous United States
Colorado Forest Atlas and Risk Reduction Planner: These applications provide Colorado citizens the best available information about forest conditions and Colorado State Forest Service activities
Colorado Post-Fire Recovery Playbook: provides guidance for counties, tribes, municipalities and water providers
FEMA Resilience Analysis and Planning Tool (RAPT) allows users to combine layers of community resilience indicators, infrastructure locations and hazard data to visualize, prioritize and implement strategies for planning in community outreach, resilience, response and recovery
The FIRE-BIRD tool developed by RMRS researchers aims to help managers make better decisions for maintaining key wildlife habitat without sacrificing the economic viability to local communities
Fire & Aviation Application Information Website (FAM-IT Portal) Brings together interagency applications, tools and user support services to support Federal, State, and Local government agencies which provide support for all wildfires and other incidents
Piled Fuels Biomass and Emissions Calculator allows land managers to more accurately assess biomass in hand piles, leading to better smoke production estimates, improved burn scheduling, and more accurate compliance with the maximum allowable emissions limits as determined by various state smoke management plans
NWCG ICS Forms: NWCG publications and web portals are the primary vehicles by which NWCG standards are transmitted. Publications include standards, guides, job aids, position task books, training curricula, and other documents
Rangeland Analysis Platform (RAP) is a free, online tool that helps landowners and natural resource managers track vegetation through time and plan actions to improve America’s grazing lands
SFE Webinar: Mapping burned areas from the Landsat archive: Operational National Satellite Burned Area Product: Land management and large-scale assessments of fire activity are hindered by the inconsistencies related to spatial and temporal fire information
Smoke and Roadway Safety Guide is a comprehensive resource for addressing the significant risk when smoke from wildfire and prescribed fire impacts roadways used by the public and fire personnel
Symbology for all hazard incidents and community lifelines
Types of Forest Treatments – The Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborated created these slide decks to educate about forest treatments used by Fireshed partners
Western Flow Metrics: Climate change is projected to alter the flow regimes of streams and rivers, with consequences for physical processes, aquatic organisms, and water resource management
WFEIS is a web-based tool that provides users a simple interface for calculating wildland fire emissions across the US and Canada
Traditional Ecological Knowledge
US FOREST SERVICE RESOURCES
“Rising to meet this moment in history: Forest Service & tribal land stewardship”
Tribal and Indigenous Fire Tradition
Tribal Engagement at the Rocky Mountain Research Station
The Intertribal Timber Council (ITC), Forest Service Office of Tribal Relations (OTR), and Forest Service Wildfire Risk Reduction Infrastructure Team (WRRIT) hosted an informational session on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funding for use in USDA Forest Service fuels and fire risk mitigation work.
See the recording here and background materials for the session.
Incorporating Indigenous Knowledge and Values into Forest Management
USFS Tribal Connections Map supports USFS employees in making informed land management decisions based on tribal relations and treaties.
INDIGENOUS CONSERVATION GROUPS
Events, online learning and more at the Intertribal Timber Council website
Indian Nations Conservation Alliance keeps members informed of ever-changing opportunities or regulations that impact their productivity and profitability
The Intertribal Agriculture Council pursues and promotes the conservation, development and use of agricultural resources. The Council outlined some of the Infrastructure Bill’s investments in Tribal communities here
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Northern Rockies Fire Science Network Fire and Traditional Knowledge multi-media resources
Traditional Knowledge and Fire Newsletter
First Nations Wildfire Evacuations: A guide for Communities and External Agencies
Barriers to understanding the influence of Use of Fire by Aborigines on Vegetation: 1963 article by Omar C. Stewart, University of Colorado. Stewart discusses the importance of taking time to learn from aboriginal people about their historical use of fire. In addition, Stewart addresses several reasons that historical information acquired from indigenous people is often disregarded in the realm of science.
Weather and Smoke
AirNow Fire and Smoke Map allows you to compare current air quality from low-cost sensors, permanent monitors that report to AirNow, and temporary monitors
Air Quality Index Calculator provides real-time air pollution index for 100+ countries
BlueSky Framework is a model management system that facilitates the use of predictive models to simulate the cumulative impacts of smoke on air quality from forest, agricultural, and range fires
Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes: Interactive website includes information on upcoming storms, post-storm reports, and the latest research on weather and climate
HYSPLIT is a complete system for computing simple air parcel trajectories, as well as complex transport, dispersion, chemical transformation, and deposition simulations. HYSPLIT continues to be one of the most extensively used atmospheric transport and dispersion models in the atmospheric sciences community
Hazard Mapping System Fire and Smoke Product: The system combines near real-time polar and geostationary satellite observations into a common framework in which expert image analysts perform quality control of automated fire products and digitization of smoke plumes
HRRR-NCEP-Smoke: The Rapid Refresh is a high-frequency weather forecast (numerical weather prediction) and data assimilation system
National Monthly Fire Potential Outlook provides outlooks for the current month, the following month, and a seasonal look at two months beyond that
National Weather Service Denver/Boulder Fire Weather Forecast Services
National Weather Service: Map of weather forecast offices
National Weather Service: Storm Prediction Center
National Wildfire Coordinating Group: Guide to Fire Weather Forecasts, PMS 425
National Wildlife Coordinating Group guide to fire weather forecasts is designed for firefighters at all experience levels and for early- to mid-career fire weather meteorologists to guide them on the field expectations of their forecasts
Rocky Mountain Area 7-Day Fire Weather Outlook
Smoke Management Guides and Resources (FRAMES): provides most recent guides and resources addressing smoke management, health and safety, and more
Smoke-Ready Toolbox for Wildfires: Resources and tools for wildfires that provide information on health impacts from smoke exposure, current fire conditions and forecasts and strategies to reduce exposure to smoke
VSmoke is a detailed planning tool that estimates downwind concentrations of particulate matter at 31 fixed distances, and how far and how well a person may see through the smoke plume at each distance
NWS Fire Weather Spot Webservices: made up of Site-specific (SPOT) forecasts. The webservice is updated every 15 minutes. Spot Forecast are issued by WFOs in support of wildfire management, and natural resource management.