Long-range forecasting of forest fire danger based on the SLAV model seasonal ensemble forecasts

Developed is a scheme of the long-range forest fire danger (FD) forecasting based on the computation of the Nesterov's index and on hydrodynamic forecasts of air temperature and precipitation of the SLAV model. The satellite information on the climatic distribution of the snow cover was taken into account for the forecast issuance. It is proposed to express the FD index not using traditional classes of fire danger but in "above the norm," "norm," and "below the norm" gradations. Presented are the results of author's trials of the method based on the retrospective model data for six years. Discussed are the approaches to the improvement of the method of long-range fire danger forecasting.