• Rocky Mountain Research Station
• 240 West Prospect
• Fort Collins, CO 80526
• (970) 498-1100

Rocky Mountain Center

Rocky Mountain Center

The Rocky Mountain Center for Advanced Modeling of Meteorology and Smoke (RMC) has been involved in applied research and technology transfer under the leadership of the Rocky Mountain Research Station. RMC's primary objective is the continuous development and deployment of science-based computer applications for real-time delivery of fire-weather intelligence and smoke forecasts to support wildland fire operations, prescribed burns, and air-resource management in the Western USA.

The fire- and smoke-management community frequently looks to the RMC for highly customized, value-added weather products, and a quick response to field-users requests for weather intelligence. Its website offers over 100,000 weather products and tools to assist fire and smoke managers. RMC currently supports 4 western Geographic Area Coordination Centers with critical weather information for the Rocky Mountain, Southwest, Eastern Great Basin, and Western Great Basin regions.

Products are used by fire and smoke managers to: (1) accurately assess fire danger; (2) plan prescribed burns; (3) allocate firefighting resources; and (4) measure the impacts of smoke from burns and wildfires. Increasingly, other users such as the outdoor recreation industry are using the RMC to plan activities and manage enterprises. The RMC is also serves as a rich platform for exploring research questions related to the effects of climate variability, and integrating this with location-specific data and management problems.