Successful Transition!

On March 26, 2025, the Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS) NextGen officially became the authoritative system of record for decisions on active federal wildland fire incidents.

In the first 45 days, we've had incredible engagement from the user community with almost 5,000 user role requests approved in FAMAuth across both EDU and PROD instances! Regional and Agency subject-matter experts and Geographic Area Editors collaborated early with the WFDSS team and are now fully engaged in leading pre-season refreshers and trainings at the local, GACC and National levels integrating the new application.

The initial release (v1.0) contained the Minimum Viable Product (MVP), or the features necessary to create and publish an incident decision. Work is ongoing to continue to build out the application to meet users needs and respond to almost 2 decades of user enhancement requests. Looking forward, the next large release (v1.1) is anticipated this summer and will address the need for users to create incidents/decisions in EDU, automate system validation of the required decision elements, facilitate multiple approvers signing a decision and provide the ability to preview a decision pdf prior to approval/publication.

Release v1.0.1

The very first release has been deployed to both the WFDSS EDU and PROD environments and is focused on improving user experience and repairing bugs reported by users. This release was deployed on May 15, 2025.

New functions:

Clearly labeling areas that are still under development.
User Interface and User Profile component clean up.
Removal of My activity on My Home.
LFPS Data list update in FSPro.
Collaborator component refactor and hardening.
Technical Debt for security issues, shapefile upload.
Foundational work for tabular Legacy Data search component.
Foundational work for Legacy Data map layer.
Foundational work for Incident Creation in EDU.

Bugs addressed:

(the Known Issues spreadsheet first tab displays current known issues and workarounds. The second tab shows items resolved in 1.0.1. Additional tabs for future releases that solve known issues will be added as they are addressed.)

Shapefile upload issues.
Map Display issues of the Landscape and FSPro Results. 
Print Map issues with Planning Area and FSPro results. 
User List sorting issues.
Saving issues with FSPro Weather.
Working on Bulleted list causing errors with PDF generation. 
Collaborators not able to see Analysis Summary.

For Analysts – any unsubmitted analyses where weather information was generated and saved prior to the release will fail if submitted after the release due to a reconfiguration. Re-generating and saving the weather information after the release will avoid this issue.

The Release Notes can be found on the WFDSS Homepage under What’s New.

FAQS

I'm trying to add a user as a Collaborator or Approver on my incident and I can't find them using the User Search or the Edit Collaborators list.
Users with approved access and roles through FAMAuth still need to access the application instance (EDU and PROD) to create a user record in the application. Best practice is to log in to each instance of WFDSS when roles have been approved and complete the User Profile information, including self-certifying as approver, where appropriate.
Users requesting access and roles should view the System Access help topic and work with your GAE to ensure that you are requesting the proper role for your needs and that role approval is timely.
When is WFDSS Classic officially going away?
WFDSS Classic will be officially removed from service no later than mid June. Currently, Classic Production is available in a read-only state. WFDSS Classic Training will remain online through early June; however, FSPro servers have been decommissioned.
I'd like to create my own incident in WFDSS EDU.
To create an incident and start a decision, users will have to utilize a connected system that writes to IRWIN OAT/next. WFDSS Classic Training meets this need until decommissioning. Users may have to work with their local dispatch to create incidents for WFDSS EDU after that time. Facilitating user-created incidents directly in the WFDSS EDU application remains a high priority and is expected to be part of the v1.1 release.
How do I get Help?
It is always recommeded that users follow Agency, Area, or Unit protocols for getting Decision Support.

For self-service application support, the WFDSS Icon in the upper left or the User Support link in the header banner of any WFDSS NG instance will open the WFDSS NG Home page in a new window on the User’s browser. Users can use the search box in the upper right of the screen, navigate to topics on the left-hand panel or select resources from the Quick Links section.

For application access and role requests, please reach out to your local GAE.

As the application is currently in development, these user support topics will continue to evolve.

Training

Geospatial Fire Analysis Interpretation and Application (S495) - In early April, 60 students, along with cadre and coaches, dove into FSPro modeling both through online lessons and a full week of classroom exercises. Not only did this introduce future and current analysts to new workflows, but also allowed the WFDSS team to test the system and document unexpected behaviors that were remedied as part of the WFDSS v1.0.1 release.

WFDSS Workshop 2025 - facilitated through the Remote Incident Support Workshop

13 30-minute to 1 hour sessions during WFDSS Workshop - more than 100 participants in each live session. Recordings are cross-posted here: WFDSS workshop 2025

Fire Behavior Workshop

Several sessions of the Fire Behavior Workshop were also led by members of the WFM RD&A and WFDSS teams. Recordings of those sessions are available through the RIST Linktree under "Remote Incident Support Workshop Presentations."

WFDSS Homepage

WFDSS Tutorial Playlist

Office Hours - Tell us how we're doing!

The WFDSS team has been supporting weekly Office Hours, hosted in MS Teams, for almost 3 month to facilitate a smooth transition. Now we're looking for feedback on how we can best meet the needs of the user community going forward. Please take a few minutes to fill out this SHORT survey.

Starting this week, we will be transitioning to bi-weekly Office Hours on the First and Third Wednesday, 1300 mtn. The next Office Hours will occur on June 4th, 2025.

Recordings of Office Hours can be found on our Playlist.

In loving memory,

Wildland Fire Decision Support System

April 1, 2009 - March 26, 2025

WFDSS time dims,

New horizons guide the way,

Nextgen WFDSS flames will soar.

WFDSS Classic

As we approach the official decommissioning of the Wildland Fire Decision Support System (Classic), we would like to take a moment to reflect on its invaluable contributions and express our gratitude for its unwavering support over the years since launch April 1, 2009.

Since its launch, WFDSS has played a crucial role in enhancing wildfire management, providing decision support to thousands of line officers and fire managers across the nation. Approximately 18,408 user accounts were created within WFDSS. WFDSS has been instrumental in helping users incorporate Land and Resource Management Plan direction in decision making, assess risks, strategize responses, and ultimately protect our communities, natural resources, firefighters, and the public. 8,256 incidents published decisions for a total of over 14,600 published decisions and over 110,300 fire modeling analysis were run since going live in 2009.

We would like to thank all users for their feedback and support of the application and specifically the Geographic Area Editors who contributed greatly to the adoption and success of the system. We also owe a great debt of gratitude to the development team who supported the application through many a long fire season. It has been an honor to see how WFDSS transformed the way we approach wildfire decision-making.

Why WFDSS?

WFDSS is designed to improve the user experiencing by being Scalable, Map-Focused and Intuitive, while providing users with authoritative data and “as near to” real-time information as possible to facilitate informed and rapid decision making. WFDSS integrates various applications into a single risk-informed, collaborative system to streamline the analysis and reporting process.