In 1954 there were eight different Fire danger rating systems in use across the United States. Better communication and better transportation were beginning to make mutual assistance agreements between fire control agencies more practical than in the past. State compacts, and in the case of the Federal government, interagency and interregional agreements were bringing fire control teams together from widely separated areas of the county. It became necessary to establish a national system for estimating Fire danger and fire behavior to improve and simplify communications among all people concerned with wildland fire.