News
Updated Training Materials for OK-FIRE on Website
Now that we are in the dormant fire season, our normally most active time for wildfires, I wanted to remind new and old OK-FIRE users that updated training materials for self-paced learning are located in the "Contacts and Learning Tools" section (see left menu) of the website. These updates reflect the new fire danger model that was made public on June 3, 2020. The new fire danger model utilizes new satellite data at higher spatial resolution (500 m) than before (1 km) as well as a revised fuel model map with the same higher resolution (500 m). The new model also has higher temporal resolution with satellite data being received daily (instead of weekly) and the fire danger model being run every 15 minutes (instead of hourly).
We have updated past workshop presentations in accord with the new fire danger model. Unfortunately, in these workshop PDF documents we cannot do the website demos, discuss the slides, play any animations, nor answer questions as we would do in a live class. We have also uploaded three revised lab exercises to help familiarize the user with the website. All these appear in the "Workshop Presentations and Lab Exercises" subsection within the "Contacts and Learning Tools" section of the OK-FIRE website.
In addition, we have revised some of the documents in the "Website and Product Overview" and "OK-FIRE Basics" subsections per the new fire danger model and also created two documents on the new fire danger model and the dispersion model which can be found in the "Website and Product Overview" subsection: "Oklahoma Fire Danger Model" and "Oklahoma Dispersion Model".
Hopefully these new training materials can and will be helpful to OK-FIRE users, both to those new to the system as well as to those who have used the system for years. Regardless of where you stand as a user, we would recommend looking at these new and revised materials that pertain to the new fire danger model so you can understand the new satellite and fuel model methodology we are now using.
Note that we will be working on developing OK-FIRE video training "modules" in which the presentation slides and website demos will contain audio to better explain what is being presented, but those videos will take some time to develop.
Dr. J. D. Carlson
OK-FIRE Program Manager
Oklahoma State University
