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National
Seasonal Assessment
Workshops
Objectives
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| At NSAW climate experts work to develop a seasonal fire outlook report. |
National Seasonal Assessment Workshops (NSAW) are conferences designed to develop tools for proactive fire management. The workshops bring together climatologists, predictive service units, and fire managers from across the nation to produce seasonal fire outlook reports. The objective of the meetings is to improve information available to fire management decision makers by incorporating the best science available and by fostering collaboration between fire and climate experts from state and federal agencies, universities, and the private sector. The meetings are structured to foster communication between climate forecasters, regional climate experts, Geographic Area Coordination Center specialists, and state and federal fire and fuels specialists. The process includes characteristics such as direct interaction between partners, adequate time for partnership building and long-term commitment of people at multiple levels, in order to create effective information tools, and processes for improved fire management. Specifically, NSAW participants work together in order to:
| • | Revise the standards, procedures, and protocols used for producing multi-timescale fire danger outlooks. |
| • | Create comprehensive seasonal fire danger outlooks that incorporate information about climate and fuels conditions. |
| • | Improve national fire danger outlook “edgematching” in adjacent regions, through sharing information about regional fuels and climate/weather patterns. |
| • | Create a mechanism for future interagency cooperation and enhanced information flow by providing an environment conducive to dialogue and discussion. |
| • | Gather feedback from workshop participants, in order to improve the outlooks and to improve the process used to generate the outlooks. |
| • | Discuss potential new approaches to assessing climate impacts on wildfire regimes and related forest and wildland management. |
| • | Share fire danger outlooks for the upcoming fire season with the media and general public via the press and interviews. |