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Staff demonstrate Excel workflow and clarify FEMs portal ingest timing for fire-danger data
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Summary
A staff member demonstrated an Excel-based method for pulling FEMs fire-danger data for four fire danger rating areas and staff clarified portal ingest timing: daily snow flags at 1600 UTC, weather updates every five minutes, and daily min/max at station local midnight; API access is available on request.
Speaker 1, a staff member, demonstrated an Excel-based workflow for pulling fire-danger data from the FEMs portal and told colleagues the workbook can refresh multiple FEMs queries automatically for each fire danger rating area (FDRA). "You open the Excel file. You hit the update. Everything updates automatically," Speaker 1 said during the demonstration.
The demonstration showed one query per FDRA and one query per weather feed, with each FDRA in the example drawing from two to four raw stations. Speaker 1 said they copied the same data structure to create year-to-date tables (01/01/2025–12/31) and built 5-day and 7-day summaries and daily-max lines for visualization. The four FDRAs highlighted in the example were a high-elevation FDRA, Montrose FDRA, Uncompahgre, and the West Zone.
The session included a brief technical exchange when Speaker 3 asked whether a "hot dry windy" indicator in the spreadsheet was an image or live data; Speaker 1 replied the current workbook uses an image as a placeholder but includes a hot-dry-windy query that will update when the file refreshes.
During the same meeting, Speaker 2 posted an updated ingest-timing visual on the FEMs portal and walked attendees through how data arrive and when calculations run. According to Speaker 2, DRI snow flags are ingested once daily and cover a 24-hour on/off state; those flags are received at 1600 UTC. Weather observations come in every five minutes via the WXX feed, and the system re-runs NFDRS calculations whenever new weather arrives. Speaker 2 described a once-daily processing step that produces the daily min/max observation values and the NFDRS forecast.
Speaker 4 asked whether the slide’s reference to 'midnight UTC' meant local station midnight. Speaker 2 acknowledged the inconsistency and said, "I apologize. That is midnight local. You are correct," and committed to correcting the slide to show local station midnight for the observation min/max calculation.
Speaker 2 also pointed attendees to user guides on the FEMs portal that document data ingest timing, how to use the copy-data link, API details, RAWS quality-control processes and the FAB 21 file format, and transition material moved from the NFDS subcommittee. Staff encouraged participants to bookmark the portal and said API access is available upon request to help manage direct notifications to user groups.
The meeting closed with Speaker 2 offering to stay for follow-up questions and the group agreeing to reconvene the following week.
