An Elevated Fire Weather Area is the lowest of the three wind and humidity tiers on the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) Day 1 and Day 2 Fire Weather Outlooks. SPC draws it based on fuel conditions and a forecast of winds, relative humidity and temperatures that come close to, but stay short of, a critical combination.
Where it sits on the ladder
NWS Instruction 10-401 describes the tier as a nearly critical combination of winds, humidity and temperature on top of fuel conditions. One step up is Critical, where that combination is forecast to reach critical levels, and above that is Extremely Critical.
On the dry thunderstorm side, an Isolated Dry Thunderstorm area is treated as the equivalent of an elevated threat. So Elevated is the entry level on both of the outlook's threat tracks.
Elevated versus a Red Flag Warning
An Elevated area is national guidance drawn over a broad region. A Red Flag Warning is a local office product tied to criteria that the office set with its land management partners.
The two can overlap or not. Local thresholds differ, so part of an Elevated area may meet one office's Red Flag criteria while a neighboring office's area does not.
A similar name at the local level
Some local offices run their own elevated fire danger messaging with separate criteria, such as the Elevated Fire Danger criteria the NWS St. Louis office publishes alongside its Red Flag criteria. That local product is not the same thing as the SPC tier, even though the names are close.
What Elevated does not tell you
The tier appears on the Day 1 and Day 2 maps only. The Day 3 to 8 outlook expresses the wind and humidity threat as Critical areas and probabilities of Critical conditions instead, and the directive lists no Elevated tier for those days.
Nearly critical is still fire weather. An SPC discussion may frame a day as at least Elevated, and the text can explain which part of the setup, such as wind, dryness or fuels, kept the area from a higher tier.