The Energy Release Component (ERC) is an NFDRS (National Fire Danger Rating System) index related to how hot a fire could burn. It is directly related to the 24-hour, potential worst case, total available energy (BTUs) per unit area (in square feet) within the flaming front at the head of a fire.

The ERC can serve as a good characterization of fire season as it tracks seasonal fire danger trends well. The ERC is a function of the fuel model and live and dead fuel moistures. Fuel loading, woody fuel moistures, and larger fuel moistures all have an influence on the ERC, while the lighter fuels have less influence and wind speed has none. ERC has low variability, and is the best fire danger component for indicating the effects of intermediate to long-term drying on fire behavior (if it is a significant factor) although it is not intended for use as a drought index.

Charts are from selected RAWS in each PSA and are arranged generally from the northern part of the Geographic Area to the southern part. The weather stations used represent the best fire danger conditions for that PSA. Most stations contain at least twenty years of historical weather data. Data collected prior to 1976 is not used in these analyses due to an issue with the relative humidity measurements before that time.

Winter conditions of snow covered fuels require that the ERC and fuel moisture graphs be temporarily discontinued. The graphs for this page are generated by FireFamily Plus. Weather station data imported into FireFamily Plus during the months of snow covered fuels does not contain all required information to generate accurate NFDRS outputs. This is due to missing Wet Fuels flag information in the imported FWX data and the FireFamily Plus program not being programmed to utilize the information imported using the FW9 format. Accurate values can be obtained from the Weather Information Management System (WIMS) - if the daily observation represents the snow covered fuels by properly “forcing” the Wet Fuels flag entry.

 

Most recent update: Tuesday, 3/10/2009.