Flaming forecast

Widespread power outages. Fastburning, frightening fires.

It’s been an exhausting, terrifying month in the Bay Area, and fire season isn’t even over yet.

Disasterweary residents have yet to receive many answers, whether from Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (which has said its planned power shutoffs could last as long as 10 years) or their state leaders in Sacramento. As yet another massive fire burns in Sonoma County, they deserve far more communication and better solutions.

There’s a promising state pilot program that may provide both. In Southern California, local fire officials are working with a UC San Diego supercomputer to predict the direction of wildfires.

One of the supercomputer’s tools, known as WIFIRE, uses realtime data to simulate fire progress, allowing firefighters to gauge a fire’s direction for about six hours in the future. Firefighters used it to battle the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles, which broke out on Monday morning and was 55% contained as of Wednesday night.

Firefighting in California has never been more important — and it’s never faced so many limits.

The Department of the Interior has reported being short hundreds of firefighters this year. (Many of California’s largest and worst fires have been on federal land.) Rural counties face volunteer force shortages. Even as existing crews are overstretched, the new crop of severe wildfires has made the job more intense and dangerous.

This new tool could help thin crews make better use of their time and resources, saving both lives and communities.

Obstacles to full adoption include funding, the usual challenges involved in coordinating multiple agencies, and the potential for even more shortnotice power outages as officials receive the realtime data.

None of these hurdles are insurmountable, and none of them should distract state leaders from the goal of extending this program into all of the state’s fire zones as quickly as possible.