Information systems in support of wildland fire management decision making in Canada

This paper provides an overview of four national forest fire management information systems currently used in Canada. The Canadian forest fire danger rating system (CFFDRS) is a non-spatial system, which provides the science framework for fire danger rating in Canada. The spatial fire management system (sFMS) is a geographic information system based fire management information system that implements two core subsystems of the CFFDRS, along with other models and systems. The sFMS is the spatial engine that has been used to implement both of Canada's national forest fire management information systems, the Canadian wildland fire information system (CWFIS) and the fire monitoring, mapping and modeling system (Fire M3). The CWFIS is Canada's national fire management information system; it presents daily information on fire weather, fire behavior potential and selected upper atmospheric conditions. Fire M3 integrates the use of satellite technology for monitoring and mapping large fire occurrence in Canada. Fire M3 also incorporates information from CWFIS to model the impacts of large forest fires based on fire weather conditions and potential fire behavior. Crown Copyright (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.