AQHI, wind, and fire risk: the three numbers a resident needs
Residents don't want a weather station. They want to know whether to light the fire. Three numbers, in the right order, answer that — and the order is the whole trick.
2 min read
Every department that publishes conditions faces the same temptation: show everything. Temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, the fire weather index, the air quality health index, a forecast, a radar loop.
It's all real data. It's also the fastest way to make sure nobody reads any of it.
Lead with the answer
A resident arriving at your page has exactly one question, and it isn't "what is the relative humidity." It's can I burn today?
Answer that first, in a sentence, in language that doesn't need a legend:
Yes — open-air burning is permitted today. Fires must be attended at all times and fully extinguished before you leave the site.
Then show the numbers underneath, as the reason for the answer. That ordering does two things: the person in a hurry gets what they came for, and the person who wants to understand can see the conditions the answer came from. Nobody has to interpret an index to find out whether they're allowed to light a fire.
The three that matter
Once the answer is stated, three numbers carry almost all the useful information.
| Number | What it tells the resident | Why it belongs |
|---|---|---|
| Fire risk | How readily a fire will start and spread | The direct answer to "is today dangerous" |
| AQHI | Whether smoke is a health problem today | A neighbour with asthma is the most common complaint |
| Wind | Whether the fire will stay where they put it | The single best predictor of an escape |
Everything else — humidity, dew point, the precipitation record — feeds into fire risk. Show the conclusion, not the ingredients.
Why AQHI earns its place
Air quality is the number departments most often leave off, and it's the one that has changed most in the last few seasons. On a smoke day, a technically permitted fire is still a bad idea, and residents increasingly know that. Publishing the AQHI alongside the burn answer is what lets a department say "you may, but consider not" — which is the honest position on a lot of summer days.
It also pre-empts the complaint call. A resident who can see the index was low has a much shorter conversation with the neighbour who calls it in.
Say where the number came from
Attribution is not a footnote. "AQHI from the Dorset station, 5:00 PM" is the difference between a number people trust and a number people assume someone typed in.
It also tells the reader how stale the reading is, which matters: a condition from four hours ago on a windy afternoon is a different fact than one from ten minutes ago.
What this looks like in practice
One sentence, three numbers, one attribution line. A resident answers their question in about four seconds, and the department has published the basis for the answer rather than asking anyone to take it on faith.
The rest of the weather belongs on a weather site.
- conditions
- AQHI
- wind
- residents
- public information