Forest Fire Risk Indices

Forest Fire Index | Fosberg Fire Weather Index | Drought Index

Forest Fire Index

The Forest Fire Index estimates the risk of forest fires based on moisture information of three different soil layers. The index ranges from 0 to 1, where the risk increases for values exceeding 0.5. A value of 0 indicates low risk, while a value of 1 indicates very high risk.

forest_fire_warning:idx

Examples:

• The forest fire index for a period during late summer in 2019 near Melbourne, Australia:

  

  Current Situation:
  https://api.meteomatics.com/2024-12-19T00:00:00Z--2024-12-26T00:00:00Z:PT1H/forest_fire_warning:idx/-37.886167,146.077764/html
• The forest fire index for June 18th, 2020:

  

  
  Current Situation:
  https://api.meteomatics.com/2024-12-19T00:00:00Z/forest_fire_warning:idx/europe:0.1,0.1/png

Fosberg Fire Weather Index

The Fosberg fire weather index indicates the risk for bush/grass fire and ranges from 0 to 100 (continuous scale). The fire danger is evaluated according to the present weather without taking into account past weather conditions.

fosberg_fire_weather_index:idx

Example:

• The Fosberg Index along with the daily precipitation sum in spring 2021 near San José, California, is shown:

  

  Current Situation:
  https://api.meteomatics.com/2024-12-19T00:00:00Z--2024-12-26T00:00:00Z:PT24H/fosberg_fire_weather_index:idx,precip_24h:mm/37.571174,-120.762804/html

Drought Index

This index forecasts whether a certain location is under a drought or not. The percentiles of the deviation of the current time window from the mean of the past years is computed. The percentiles are then grouped into bins which gives the following output scale for the drought index:

Percentile	0-10	10-20	20-30	30-40	40-60	60-70	70-80	80-90	90-100
Index	-4	-3	-2	-1	0	1	2	3	4
			dry	⟵		⟶	humid

drought_index:idx

Example:

• Drought index in August 2018 over Europe. Red colors indicate very dry conditions.
  https://api.meteomatics.com/2018-09-01T00:00:00Z/drought_index:idx/Europe:0.05,0.05/html_map.