There are nearly 1,500 interagency Remote Automated Weather Stations (RAWS) strategically located throughout the United States. Weather data assists land management agencies with monitoring air quality, rating fire danger, and providing information for research applications. Most of the stations owned by the wildland fire agencies are located where they can monitor fire danger. RAWS units collect, store, and forward data to a computer system at the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho, via the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES). The GOES is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). These data are automatically forwarded to other computer systems including the Weather Information Management System (WIMS) and the Western Regional Climate Center in Reno, Nevada (www.wrcc.dri.edu). Other Automated Weather Stations (AWS) transmit data to the WIMS system via telephone telemetry. Fire managers use RAWS data to predict fire behavior and monitor fuels; resource managers also use data to monitor environmental conditions