Talking about the weather is common in everyday conversation, but talking about all the work that goes into collecting weather data is a bit more complicated. When it comes to firefighter and public safety, it is essential to gather localized weather data for fire management - a job for remote automatic weather stations or RAWS. The BLM Remote Sensing/Fire Weather Support Unit maintains over 2,300 RAWS units in the WXx Weather system network. Branch Chief Robbie Swofford, Depot Section Supervisor Justin Dopp, and Electronics Technician Cindy Sherfick discuss their mission to keep all components of the RAWS stations operational. They talk about their career paths, interesting animal encounters, and why they enjoy what they do. From the first incident RAWS - developed by this unit and deployed to meet more temporary needs for weather information, mainly due to wildfires or other natural disasters - to the growing infrastructure of permanent RAWS, this essential unit/program has the important and critical job of ensuring wildland fire managers, and others who may rely on weather data to operate safely, are receiving timely weather data. WXx Weather information is publicly available at https://weather.nifc.gov.
BLM Wildland Fire Investigator and Trespass Coordinator Court Gossard talks about his transition from the military to working in wildland fire. We discuss the...
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Nationally, humans cause 87% of all wildfires that average over 3.4 million acres burned annually. Jon Skinner, national lead for the BLM Fire Mitigation...