The Thousand Hour Dead Fuel Moisture Component is an NFDRS (National Fire Danger Rating System)
index.
This is the moisture content of dead organic fuels, expressed
as a percentage of the oven dry weight of the sample, that is
controlled entirely by exposure to environmental conditions.
1000-Hour dead fuel moisture levels are computed from
a 7-day average boundary condition composed of day length, hours of rain,
and daily temperature/humidity ranges. Fuel sizes range from 3
to 6 inches in diameter.
Charts are from selected RAWS in each PSA and
are arranged generally from the northern part of the Geographic
Area to the southern part. The weather stations used represent
the best fire danger conditions for that PSA. Most stations contain
at least twenty years of historical weather data. Data collected
prior to 1976 is not used in these analyses due to an issue with
the relative humidity measurements before that time.
Winter conditions of snow covered fuels require
that the ERC and fuel moisture graphs be temporarily discontinued.
The graphs for this page are generated by FireFamily Plus. Weather
station data imported into FireFamily Plus during the months of
snow covered fuels does not contain all required information to
generate accurate NFDRS outputs. This is due to missing Wet Fuels
flag information in the imported FWX data and the FireFamily Plus
program not being programmed to utilize the information imported
using the FW9 format. Accurate values can be obtained from the
Weather Information Management System (WIMS) - if the daily observation
represents the snow covered fuels by properly “forcing”
the Wet Fuels flag entry.
Most recent update: Monday, 9/5/2016.