Keech Byram Drought Index and McArthur’s Forest Fire Danger Index

kbdi-ffdi is a Python package for calculating the Keech-Byram Drought Index (KBDI) and McArthur’s Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) from daily surface-level meteorological data. KBDI and FFDI are commonly used metrics for assessing drought and fire danger in South Africa and Australia. With the kbdi-ffdi Python package, you can compute KBDI and FFDI from csv data or netCDF data and save the results.

Technical Report

References

  1. Kraaij, J. Baard, J. Arndt, L. Vhengani, and B. van Wilgen, An assessment of climate, weather, and fuel factors in influencing a large, destructive wildfire in the Knysna region, South Africa, Fire Ecology, vol. 14, no. 2, 2018.
    1. McArthur, Fire behaviour in eucalypt forests, Canberra: Forestry and Timber Bureau, 1967.
    1. Noble, A. M. Gill, and G. A. V. Bary, McArthur’s fire-danger meters expressed as equations, Australian Journal of Ecology, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 201-203, 1980.
  1. Lucas, On developing a historical fire weather data-set for Australia, Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Journal, vol. 60, no. 1, pp. 1-14, 2010.
    1. Keech and G. M. Byram, A drought index for forest fire control, USDA Forest Service Research Paper SE-38, 1968.
    1. Holgate, A. van Dijk, G. J. Cary, and M. Yebra, Using alternative soil moisture estimates in the McArthur Forest Fire Danger Index, International Journal of Wildland Fire, vol 26, pp. 806-819, 2017.
  1. Griffiths, Improved formula for the drought factor in McArthur’s Forest Fire Danger Meter, Australian Forestry, vol. 62, no. 2, pp. 202-206, 1999.
  1. Finkele, G. A. Mills, G. Beard, and D. A. Jones, National gridded drought factors and comparison of two soil moisture deficit formulations used in prediction of Forest Fire Danger Index in Australia, Australian Meteorological Magazine, vol. 55, pp. 183-197, 2006.

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