News: Meteorologists work in the field with firefighters

Eric Parsons / Star staff
Richard Thompson, an incident meteorologist with the National Weather Service
in Oxnard, demonstrates the use of a sling psychrometer to calculate relative humidity.

For Richard Thompson, a wildfire means the chance to get out of the office and sleep under the stars. The Oxnard forecaster is among only about 75 specially trained "incident meteorologists" in the nation.
They provide on-site weather forecasts at wildfires, chemical spills and other large disasters. Without the forecasts, firefighters would have a much harder time controlling and extinguishing large wildfires, experts say. Wind speed and direction, along with humidity levels, can often mean the difference between victory and defeat on a fire line.
Thompson can spend up to two weeks on a big blaze, such as last year's Zaca fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. He produces numerous forecasts during this time. His days begin well before sunup and often end late at night.
In the field, Thompson is often armed only with a laptop computer that connects to the Internet with a wireless card.
His forecasts, like those produced by his office-bound colleagues, depend on computer models and weather data collected by field instruments. But a lot of it also involves forecasting that relies as much on hunches and knowledge of local weather patterns as on science. "The conditions can be pretty primitive out there," said Thompson, who works out of the National Weather Service office in Oxnard, "but it can also be very rewarding work."
Unlike the forecasts he produces behind a desk in Oxnard, Thompson's field work generates almost instant feedback from firefighters. "If your forecasts are accurate or bad, they'll let you know about them right away," he said. 'Can make a big difference' The Weather Service has provided meteorologists to help battle wildfires since 1914.
The practice stemmed partly from a huge wildfire in 1910 that burned 3 million acres in Washington, Idaho and Montana over a two-day period. It is believed to be the largest fire in recorded U.S. history, burning enough wood to fill a freight train 2,400 miles long and leading to a more systematic approach to preventing and battling wildfires.
Gary Montgomery, a rangeland management specialist in Los Padres National Forest, uses forecasts by incident meteorologists to decide where to send firefighters and equipment during wildfires. "Knowing what the weather is going to do over the coming hours and day can make a big difference when you're out on a wildfire," Montgomery said.
Thompson, 37, of Ventura began as a Weather Service intern in 1993 and became a full-fledged meteorologist two years later. He was among more than a dozen incident meteorologists who worked alongside Montgomery on last summer's Zaca fire.
The blaze burned more than 240,000 acres of forest over two months, making it the second largest fire in recorded California history.
The meteorologists had to produce numerous forecasts for different areas because of the size of the Zaca fire and Los Padres National Forest, Montgomery said. Forecasts for coastal areas often would differ greatly from those for areas farther inland.
No matter how good the forecaster, some of the weather-related events surrounding the fire were hard, if not impossible, to predict, Montgomery said. "We often had strange winds that would come through the valleys and canyons and whip up the flames," he said.
Things constantly changing Rob Balfour, a Weather Service incident meteorologist in San Diego who worked the Zaca fire, said forecasters often face "the whole gamut of meteorology" on a blaze that size. "It's a very dynamic situation where things are constantly changing," said Balfour. Fortunately, Thompson said, the Zaca firefighters understood that given the varied terrain and large expanse of land, the actual weather would sometimes differ from what was predicted. "They were willing to give us the benefit of the doubt," he said.

Source: Ventura County Star