Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) metadata
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Dataset |
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| Title | Gridded climatological data of FFDI |
Custodian |
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| Custodian | Bureau of Meteorology |
| Jurisdiction | Australia |
Description |
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| Abstract | The grids show long-term average fire weather conditions over the Australian region in the form of two-dimensional array data, based on the McArthur Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI). The data are based on daily observations primarily from the Australian Water Availability Project (AWAP) throughout the period 1950 to 2016. See LINEAGE below for more information. |
| Search Word(s) | Gridded, climate, extremes, bushfire, fire weather |
| Geographic Extent Names(s) | Australia |
| General Category | Gridded fire weather climatology, including data for mean FFDI, number of days that FFDI > 90th percentile FFDI for each month, as well as number of days that FFDI > 50 for each month |
| General Custodian Jurisdiction | Australian Government Australia |
| Geographic Extent Polygon | Not applicable |
| Geographic Bounding Box | See below |
| North Bounding Latitude | -10.00 |
| South Bounding Latitude | -45.50 |
| West Bounding Longitude | 112.00 |
| East Bounding Longitude | 156.25 |
Data Currency |
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| Beginning Date | 1950 |
| Ending Date | 2016 |
Dataset Status |
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| Progress | Completed |
| Maintenance and Update frequency |
Infrequent maintenance with potential for updated future versions |
Access |
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| Stored Data Format | NetCDF Arc/InfoTM grids - all Australia |
| Available Format Type | ASCII row major, netCDF |
| Use limitations | Use of these data should be acknowledged to the Bureau of Meteorology. These products are made available under the Bureau's default terms of use (noted at http://www.bom.gov.au/other/copyright.shtml). If you wish to use the material outside of the Bureau's default terms of use then you must contact us for a licence agreement at climatedata@bom.gov.au |
| Other Constraint | Please refer to http://www.bom.gov.au/other/disclaimer.shtml for disclaimer details |
Data Quality |
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| Lineage |
These fire weather climatology data products were produced based on daily values of the FFDI from 1950 to 2016, as detailed in the reference list below for Dowdy [2018]. Higher values of FFDI represent more dangerous fire weather conditions: for example, FFDI above 50 is classed as 'Severe'. The data available here include gridded information for the
All of those quantities are calculated individually for each grid location. The FFDI is calculated from input variables of temperature, relative humidity and wind speed on a given day, as well as a number representing fuel availability called the Drought Factor. The Drought Factor is based on the accumulated soil moisture deficit, calculated here using the Keetch-Byram Drought Index, KBDI [Keetch and Byram 1968]. The input variables for calculating the FFDI values consist primarily of a gridded analysis of observations from the Australian Water Availability Project, AWAP [Jones et al. 2009], with a grid of 0.05° in both latitude and longitude throughout Australia. This includes daily maximum temperatures, as well as vapour pressure at 1500 Local Time (used here together with temperature to calculate relative humidity near the time of maximum temperature) and daily-accumulated precipitation totals for the 24-hour period to 0900 Local Time each day. NCEP/NCAR reanalysis [Kalnay et al. 1996] 6-hourly data are used for surface wind speeds, with the 0600 UT value used here (representing mid-afternoon wind speeds over the longitude range spanned by Australia). The reanalysis wind fields were bilinearly interpolated to the AWAP grid, with bias correction subsequently applied to provide a better match to the NWP-based 0600 UT value of the 10-minute average wind speeds used operationally by BoM for issuing forecasts of the FFDI. The FFDI dataset is designed to be used for climatological applications such as in relation to broad-scale temporal and spatial variations in fire weather conditions throughout Australia. This provides a spatially continuous and long-term observations-based dataset, intended for use in producing climatological guidance information for regions throughout Australia, noting that the 67-year period of data used for this study allows a considerable degree of confidence in the features apparent in these climatologies. Further information is available in the publication Dowdy [2018], including details on the influence of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), as well as seasonal variations and long-term trends in fire weather conditions throughout Australia. In addition, information on future projected changes in bushfire conditions based on the FFDI is also available, as detailed in the publication Dowdy et al. [2019]. References
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| Attribute Accuracy | Not applicable |
| Logical Consistency | Not applicable |
| Completeness | No missing data |
Contact Information |
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| Contact Organisation | Bureau of Meteorology |
| Contact Position | Climate Data Services |
| Mail Address | PO BOX 1289, Melbourne 3001, Australia |
| Locality | |
| State | Victoria |
| Country | Australia |
| Postcode | 3001 |
| Telephone | (03) 9669 4082 |
| Facsimile | (03) 9669 4515 |
| Electronic Mail | climatedata@bom.gov.au |
Metadata date |
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| Metadata date | 2019 |