Forest Fires in the United States: 8 December 1999
Forest Fires in the United States
8 December 1999
Several active fire signals were recorded by OSEI with the NOAA-14 POES AVHRR HRPT satellite on 7 Dezember 1999 in California and the southeastern United States.
Fig. 1. and 2. The left image shows scattered heat signatures from areas of fire burning in California northeast of San Francisco.
On the right side there were high temperature events (HTE) detected from areas of fire burning in Mississippi and Alabama.
(Source: NOAA http://www.osei.noaa.gov/)
The Wildland Fire Assessment System is a contribution of “The Fire Behavior Research Work Unit”, Missoula (Montana USA) and submits a fire danger map, where the fire danger for the United States is forecasted.
Fig. 3. Fire Danger Forecast Map for 8 December 1999
(Source: Fire Behavior Research Work Unit, Missoula)
According to the INCIDENT MANAGEMENT SITUATION REPORT, as of 3 December 1999, the fire situation in the United States can be summarized by following basic fire data. Most of the fires burning in the last weeks are located in the southern regions of the United States.
FIRES
YEAR-TO-DATE HECTARES
YEAR-TO-DATE 91,827 2,249,402
For detailed information regarding specified regions, please refer to the whole report.
The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) reports its Wildland Fire Update every Friday unless significant activity occurs.
A Four-Year Wildland Fire Comparison Statistic shows the number and the area of wildland fires from 1996 to 1999.
Tab. 1. Wildland Fire Comparison Statistic of the last four years (Source: NIFC)
As of 3 Dec. 1999 Number of Wildland Fires Number of hectares 1999 91,827 2,249,402 1998 75,913 922,101 1997 64,943 1,148,671 1996 94,407 2,431,614
The preliminary summary report of the National Interagency Fire Center provides also a map of the Top Ten Largest Fires in the current fire season 1999. This summary will be further updated with a final 1999 season report by the end of this year.
