WFCA and Plume Labs, by AccuWeather, Provide a Webinar

January 23, 2023, The Western Fire Chiefs Association (WFCA) and Plume Labs by AccuWeather are pleased to announce they have joined forces to provide information on the forecast data solutions available to help mitigate the risk of wildfires to land, lives, and property, and discuss a collaborative proof of concept project: Wildfire and Smoke Evolution Mapping. 

“Information is knowledge, and we are teaming up with Plume Labs by AccuWeather to review wildfire season and explore real-time data that will help protect the health and safety of homes, businesses, and land,” said Jeff Johnson, Executive Director at the WFCA. “Wildfires are one of the most talked about natural disasters in the United States because they are hard to predict and even harder to manage. Together, we are pooling our expertise on wildfires to discuss predictive solutions that will help us overcome these challenges.”

The webinar will include wildfire experts from the WFCA, as well as climate and weather professionals from AccuWeather. WFCA Interim Deputy Director Chief Bob Horton will join his peer, Chief Brian Fennessy (Orange County Fire Authority), AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Paul Pastelok, and Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Boris Quennehen from Plume Labs. “The impact of wildfire smoke on human health is dramatic. The smoke from wildfires can be transported vast distances, potentially affecting the health of a very large number of people,” said Dr. Quennehen of Plume Labs. “Predicting where and when this smoke will go is a highly complex, cross-disciplinary challenge and we’re pleased to be tackling it together with the WFCA and our communities.”

Click here to register for the webinar that takes place on Wednesday, January 25 at 9:00 AM PST.

About the WFCA

The Western Fire Chiefs Association is a non-profit that represents fire-related emergency service organizations throughout the west coast and Western Pacific Islands. The WFCA is dedicated to protecting people and the environment from the occurrence and outcomes of fires and other natural, technological, and human-behavior-caused emergencies. In July 2022, the WFCA launched its Fire Map, which pulls data from the US Forest Service via the National Interagency Fire Center IRWIN feed and 911 Dispatch data via PulsePoint to track the location of the wildfire as they start and while they’re burning. Fire Integrated Real-time Intelligence System – FIRIS (California only) provides early fire perimeter and 3-hour forecasting models. Fire dispatch and location data are approximate, and no representation or warranty is given as to the timeliness, accuracy, or completeness of the data. The WFCA Fire Map is the first map of its kind to pull such data from 911 Dispatch in relevant areas, show live fire fighting aircraft, depict wildland fire in 3D, and is the only fire map that integrates FIRIS where it is available in California.

About Plume Labs by AccuWeather

Plume Labs is an environmental tech company on a mission to make air pollution information and environmental data accessible and empowering. Serving as AccuWeather’s center for climate and environmental data, the company is best known for empowering people and organizations around the world with the most accurate air quality maps and data globally thanks to its industry-leading AI/ML air pollution forecasts and its Flow® device, the award-winning personal air pollution sensor.

Plume Labs pioneered the air quality forecasting industry by advancing geospatial machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies to map and predict air pollution. It provides the most accurate data with the broadest coverage, with current conditions and forecasts for the entire world at a market-leading resolution of 0.2 to 2 km, down to the street level in U.S. and European urban areas. The Plume Labs data platform computes 70 billion data points every hour, to report current levels of particulate matter (PM2.5, PM10), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and ground-level ozone (O3), forecasts for the next 168 hours (7 days), and local air quality index (AQI) levels to map the real-time health risks from air pollution around the world. 

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