Recent studies by experts in Alaska and Canada have given us much new insight into the Drought Code (DC) component of the Fire Weather Index System used in both places.  While other components of the FWI are simple in concept and easily validated by field observations, there have long been questions about the DC: what does it represent? How it should be interpreted and validated? How and if we should “overwinter” DC? How to convert DC to a moisture content (by weight or by volume) or vice versa?  Canadian fire scientist Chelene Krezek-Hanes recently finished her PhD thesis, which reported on her extensive field work and remote sensing experiments and has yielded four published papers so far.  Meanwhile, Alaska fire ecologist Eric Miller teamed up with University hydrology experts to validate the DC’s assumptions against field data in Alaska. Our latest Research Brief “Everything you wanted to know about the Drought Code in Alaska . . . but were afraid to ask” gives highlights of some of their findings: https://www.frames.gov/sites/default/files/AFSC/AFSC/Research/Brief/2023-4-final.pdf