Wildfire Forecast Tools

PyreCast provides interactive tools and visualizations to help users understand wildfire conditions across California.

The platform integrates four major components:

• Active Fires
• Fire Weather
• Fuels 
• Risk Forecast

Active Fires

The Active Fires tab provides up to 14-day forecasts for ongoing wildfire incidents. Initial fire perimeters are derived from satellite-based heat detections. Users can select individual active fires to view four different model outputs across five potential fire sizes, offering a comprehensive picture of potential fire behavior. The animation feature illustrates the projected direction and timing of fire spread throughout the forecast period.

Available outputs include:

• Forecasted fire location
• Crown fire potential
• Flame Length
• Spread Rate

Fire Weather

The Fire Weather forecasting tools are accessible from the top navigation bar of the platform.  This tool displays gridded 8-day forecasts of key weather parameters that influence wildfire behavior, derived from several weather models. Users can animate all parameters across multiple forecast start times to assess evolving conditions.

Weather Parameters:

• Relative humidity (%)
• Temperature (°F)
• Fosberg Fire Weather Index
• Fine dead fuel moisture (%)
• Firebrand ignition probability (5)
• Wind direction (°)
• Sustained wind speed (mph)
• Wind gust (mph)
• Accumulated precipitation (in)
• 1-hour precipitation (in)
• Vapor pressure deficit (hPa)
• Hot-Dry-Windy Index (hPa*m/s)
• Smoke density (μg/m³)
• Total cloud cover (%)

Weather models:

• NBM
• HRRR
• Hybrid
• GFS 0.125°
• GFS 0.250°
• NAM 12 km
• NAM 3 km
• CANSAC WRF
• RTMA

Fuels 

The Fuels tab allows users to explore the current landscape and topographic conditions that influence fire behavior. Spatial datasets from 17 sources provide information on fuel characteristics, vegetation structure, and terrain. Several datasets represent historical conditions, enabling comparisons across model years and assessment of changes in forest health over time. 

These conditions include*:

• Fire Behavior and Fuel Model 40
• Aspect
• Slope (degrees)
• Elevation (ft)
• Canopy Cover (%)
• Canopy Height (m)
• Canopy Base Height (m)
• Crown Bulk Density (kg/m³)

*Not all fuel layers will include all of these conditions.

The models included are:

• LANDFIRE 2.5.0 (2025 capable)
• LANDFIRE 2.5.0/2.4.0 (2025/2024 capable)
• LANDFIRE 2.4.0 (2024 capable)
• LANDFIRE 2.3.0 (2023 capable)
• LANDFIRE 2.2.0 (2021 capable)
• LANDFIRE 2.1.0 (2020 capable)
• LANDFIRE 2.0.0 (2019 capable)
• LANDFIRE 1.4.0 (2016 capable)
• LANDFIRE 1.3.0 (2014 capable)
• LANDFIRE 1.0.5 (~2008 capable)
• California Forest Obs.
• 2022 CA Fuelscape
• 2021 CA Fuelscape
• Fire Factor 2024
• Fire Factor 2023
• Fire Factor 2022
• CA Ecosystem Climate Solution

(as of February 18, 2026)

Risk Forecast

The Risk tab presents a five-day forecast of potential wildfire consequences. Each day, more than 500 million hypothetical ignitions are simulated across California and nearby Western U.S. states to evaluate potential fires. Results from ten model outputs, representing two different ignition patterns, are animated to provide a modeled, time-based view of wildfire risk over the five-day period.

Outputs

• Relative burn probability
• Impacted structures
• Fire area
• Fire volume
• Crown fire area
• Power line ignition rate
• Fire area percentile
• Structure consequence percentile
• Timber consequence percentile
• Composite consequence percentile

Ignition Patterns

• All-cause fires
• Transmission lines