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FEMs transition team outlines gap-filling, QA and strict controls for station catalog edits
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Summary
The FEMs project plans to gap-fill weather data through Oct. 31, 2025, add QC and automated recalculation for fire-danger outputs, and require a documented communications plan with interagency partners before any station-catalog edits that would change outputs for all users.
On the call about FEMs transition and the move from WIMS, Speaker 1 described multiple data-integrity fixes that the team plans before the next fire season. He said the project has asked DRI to perform a gap fill for missing gridded weather for 2023 and 2024 up to Oct. 31, 2025, and to perform quality control (QC) and flagging of missing or extraneous data so users will have a more robust period of record.
Speaker 1 acknowledged problems that occur when station sensors go offline and when networks report on differing time scales. He said the team is working toward an automated recalculation process so that gap-fills and backfills will trigger re-computation of fire-danger outputs rather than leaving outputs out of sync. "We're moving towards that in this next year," Speaker 1 said, noting the lack of a current automated recalculation process has caused mismatches between available weather observations and fire-danger outputs.
Participants discussed the trade-offs of bringing in many private or utility station networks. Speaker 1 said RAWS-style hourly summarized data is the requirement for reliable fire-danger calculations and that the team has a contract with Synoptic Labs for enterprise data feeds; he said the project had not yet contacted PG&E about importing its ~1,600 stations. Speaker 2 warned that "more stations isn't necessarily good" when stations within the same grid box report conflicting conditions; averaging or manual station selection are both imperfect responses.
A key procedural point arose about editing the live station catalog. Speaker 5 asked for details on station-catalog edits and their scope; Speaker 1 said catalog edits would change the fire-danger output for all users and therefore the project will require a communications plan and signed agreement from interagency partners who use a site before applying changes. "They need to have a communications plan and signed with all the interagency partners who utilize that site before we even go in and start thinking about how we'd actually implement any changes," Speaker 1 said.
The team said it intends to stabilize the data environment with one or two more POR (period-of-record) updates, implement automated recalculation to keep outputs in sync with observations, and continue discussions about the cadence of updates (daily vs. weekly) and which gridded inputs to prioritize. The group also planned follow-up conversations and a subsequent call to compare Fire Family Plus and FEMs hourly outputs.
