We will be continuing the California Fire Science Seminar into 2022 with a monthly presentation hosting a wide variety of speakers and disciplines. Recordings of 2020-2021 presentations are posted at https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvPofWzmi888 and add your email to our newsletter for announcements (below).
Upcoming Seminars: TBA
Past Seminars:
Title: Wildfire impacts on water infrastructure
Date: August 16, 2022 at 2PM Pacific
Presenter: Dr. Erica Fisher (bio)
Title: “What can we learn from the single-family homes that survived the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California
Date: June 28, 2022 at 2 PM Pacific
Presenters: Dr. Eric Knapp (bio) and Yana Valachovic (bio)
Abstract: The 2018 Camp Fire, which destroyed 18,804 structures in northern California, including most of the town of Paradise, provided an opportunity to investigate housing arrangement and vegetation-related factors associated with home survival. We obtained some relatively simple measurements from a randomly selected subset of homes in Paradise, including the distance to the nearest destroyed home and structure, and nearby pre-fire overstory canopy cover at different spatial scales, from aerial imagery, and investigated the strength of their association with home survival. The findings, corroborated by photographs taken of damaged but not destroyed homes, indicate that both structural fuels (burning homes, sheds etc.) and wildland fuels influenced the likelihood of home survival, and point to changes that could substantially improve outcomes.
Title: Structural Damage from Wildfires in Wildland-Urban Interface Communities
Date: June 21, 2022 2 PM Pacific
Presenter: Dr. Negar Elhami-Khorasani
Abstract: Destructive wildfires are now a real threat in regions across the country and beyond what was once considered as the fire season, examples of which are the 2016 Gatlinburg Fire in the Southeast and the 2021 Marshall Fire in late December. Existing wildfire risk assessment procedures typically use simulation modeling to quantify the wildfire exposure to wildland-urban interface (WUI) communities, but rely on subjective estimates of the susceptibility of structures to fire in order to quantify risk. Thus, there is a need to better understand and characterize the effectiveness of different mitigation actions related to individual structure features and community layout on the resilience of a WUI community to fire. This presentation discusses findings from the analyses of past wildfire events and introduces a streamlined model to capture fire spread inside WUI communities to quantify structural damage. The proposed model can be used to guide mitigation actions in existing and new communities, and inform preparedness and response strategies by evaluating the likelihood of successful suppression based on the rate of fire spread.
Watch recording on Youtube here >
View PDF publication of “Streamlined wildland-urban interface fire tracing (SWUIFT): Modeling
wildfire spread in communities”
Bio: Negar Elhami-Khorasani is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering at the University at Buffalo. Her primary areas of research are performance-based design and resilience assessment of structures and communities under extreme hazards including structure fires, wildfires, earthquakes, and cascading multi-hazard events, such as post-earthquake fires. The outcomes of her research enhance safety by developing codes and guidelines and minimize losses by optimizing mitigation, preparedness, and response strategies. Elhami-Khorasani is the co-Chair of the ASCE/SEI Fire Protection Committee and a member of the fib, IAFSS, and the SEAoNY Resilience committees. She also serves as an associate editor for Fire Technology by Springer Nature. She was the recipient of the 2020 AISC Early Career Faculty award and the Fire Protection Research Foundation Medal.
Title: Emerging WUI and fire science from the IBHS research team
Date: May 17, 2022 2 PM Pacific
Presenters: IBHS team including Faraz Hedayati, PHD and Daniel Gorham, P.E.
Abstract:
IBHS test chamber is a unique facility to study the effects of wind on fire. The test chamber area is equal to four basketball courts which allows researchers to perform large scale wind and fire tests. The test chamber is equipped with 105 fans that can generate gusty wind ranging from 12 to 120 mph. In this presentation, we will share our experience on creating realistic gusty wind and its effects on full-scale fire tests. Then, we will talk about our ongoing collaborative research projects with USFS, NIST and Cal Fire. Finally, we will describe our role in building codes and public policy.
View Recorded presentation on Youtube >
Title: Smouldering wildfires in peatlands, forests and the Arctic
Date: March 29, 2022
Presenter: Prof. Guillermo Rein
Abstract: When are flames not the most important part of a fire? Prof Rein will take us through 20 years of his research on smouldering fires, the flameless combustion, and its importance in wildfires. Because traditionally, fire science has focused on the flames, while smouldering has often been misinterpreted. But smouldering wildfires are emerging as a global concern because they cause extensive air pollution, emit very large amounts of carbon, are difficult to detect and suppress, and accelerate climate change. Central to the topic are smouldering peat fires that lead to the largest fires on Earth. Smouldering also dominates the residual burning after flames have died out and firebrand ignition. Finally, smouldering is an important part of Arctic wildfires, which are increasing in frequency. In this seminar, Prof Rein presents a scientific overview of smouldering wildfires, the associated environmental and health issues, including climate change, and the challenges in prevention and mitigation.
View PDF of presentation slides >
Related publications
*Smouldering Fires and Natural Fuels, http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/28419
*Smouldering wildfires in peatlands, forests and the arctic: Challenges and perspectives, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coesh.2021.100296
* Review of the Transition From Smouldering to Flaming Combustion in Wildfires, https://doi.org/10.3389/fmech.2019.00049
Bio: Guillermo is Professor of Fire Science at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Imperial College London and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Fire Technology.
His research is centred on heat transfer, combustion and fire. The purpose of his work is to reduce the worldwide burden of accidental fires and protect people, their property, and the environment. His research portfolio is ample, but over the last 15 years he is best known in three areas: 1) how polymers and wood ignite so we can avoid fires from starting; 2) how engineers can design better structures that resist fire; and 3) how wildfires spread and how to fight them. He leads the research group Imperial Hazelab, which currently counts with 3 postdocs and 12 PhD students. The group is funded by a range of sponsors, most notably Arup, BASF, EPSRC, and the European Research Council (2015 Consolidator Grant).
His work has been recognised internationally with a number of research awards (e.g. 2018 SFPE Guise Medal, 2017 The Engineer Collaborate-to-Innovate Prize, 2017 Combustion Institute Sugden Award, 2016 SFPE Lund Award). He is also a motivated teacher, enthusiastic about the education of the next generation of engineers, and passionate about outreach in engineering.
Title: Future Arctic Fire Regimes: The Nexus of Science, Policy, and Diplomacy
View Recording on YouTube >
Date: December 7, 2021 2 PM Pacific
Abstract: Fire activity and severity is increasing in the high northern latitudes, including burning landscapes long thought to be "fire resistant." Across the Pan-Arctic, smoke impacts from lengthening fire seasons in the boreal and the Arctic mean new public health challenges, as well as impacts of short-lived climate forcers on the cryosphere and short-term warming. However, Indigenous cultural burning in many Pan-Arctic landscapes could reduce fire risk. In this talk, I will detail how my co-authors from the Arctic Council States, Observers, and Working Groups have defined future Arctic fire regimes and emissions based on observations from 2000 to 2020, with highlights from the 2020 and 2021 wildfire seasons. Here, we note that leadership from the Indigenous Permanent Participants is needed, as there are multiple reporting and co-production goals. Finally, coordinating scientific assessments, and potentially co-production of knowledge projects, requires understanding the needs of individual governments, the role of policy making, Indigenous representation and sovereignty, and how diplomacy and diplomatic standards are to permit international collaboration on Arctic science issues with global implications, like fire.
Bio: Dr. McCarty is an Associate Professor of Geography and Director of the Geospatial Analysis Center at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, USA and has more than 15 years’ experience in applications of remote sensing and geospatial science to quantify wildland and human-caused fires, fire emissions, agriculture and food security, and land-cover/land-use change. She is a NASA-funded PI and author or co-author of more than 30 peer-reviewed journal articles, 3 data citations, and 1 NASA Technology Transfer. She is a member of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme's Expert Group on Short-Lived Climate Forcers, contributor to the EU Action on Black Carbon Action, and co-developed fire emission methodologies used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory and National Emissions Inventory. Dr. McCarty has been working in Russia since 2008.
Recent 2021 publications on fire in Russia and the Arctic include https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac3287/meta, https://bg.copernicus.org/articles/18/5053/2021/bg-18-5053-2021.html, and https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abe328/meta
Title: Tainted Grapes, Tainted Lungs: Extreme Wildfire Impacts to Undocumented Latino/a and Indigenous Migrants
Date: January 11, 2022 2 PM Pacific
View recorded presentation on YouTube here >
Abstract: As climate change advances, communities across the United States are adapting to the increased threat of wildfires. Such disasters are expected to become more frequent and severe. In this lecture, Dr. Méndez explores why it is crucial to understand how these events amplify existing inequalities, and how to lessen the resulting harms, in particular for the most stigmatized populations, such as undocumented Latino/a and Indigenous migrants.
Bio: Dr. Michael Mendez is an assistant professor of environmental policy and planning at the University of California, Irvine and Visiting Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). He previously was the inaugural James and Mary Pinchot Faculty Fellow in Sustainability Studies and Associate Research Scientists at the Yale School of the Environment. Michael has more than a decade of senior-level experience in the public and private sectors, where he consulted and actively engaged in the policymaking process. This included working for the California State Legislature as a senior consultant, lobbyist, a member of the California State Mining & Geology Board, and as vice chair of the Sacramento City Planning Commission. In 2021, California Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Dr. Mendez to the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board. The board regulates water quality in a region of 11 million people.
During his time as a scholar, he has contributed to state and national research policy initiatives, including serving as an advisor to a California Air Resources Board member, and as a coauthor of the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s study on “Climate Vulnerability and Social Science Perspectives.” Michael is a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Board on Environmental Change and Society (BECS), a coauthor for the forthcoming National Academies of Sciences’ consensus study, "Accelerating Decarbonization in the United States: Technology, Policy, and Societal Dimensions," and a coauthor of the upcoming National Climate Assessment (NCA5), the U.S. Government's premier report on climate change impacts, risks, and adaptation across the Nation (a Congressionally mandated, interagency effort).
Dr. Mendez holds three degrees in environmental planning and policy, including a PhD from UC Berkeley's Department of City and Regional Planning, and a graduate degree from MIT. His research on the intersection of climate change and communities of color has been featured in national publications including National Geographic, Los Angeles Times, Politico, NPR, Bloomberg News, USA Today; and Fox Latino News. His new award-winning book “Climate Change from the Streets,” published through Yale University Press (2020), is an urgent and timely story of the contentious politics of incorporating environmental justice into global climate change policy. The book was the winner of the Harold and Margaret Sprout Award, sponsored by the International Studies Association (ISA), and a finalist for the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning’s John Friedmann Book Award.
Twitter: MikeMendezPhD
Instagram: MikeMendez818
Title: Firebrand shower, different phases and a new approach in modeling
Date: Feb 8, 2022 2 PM Pacific
Presenter: Dr. Ali Tohidi
Abstract: The firebrand shower phenomenon, i.e., the generation and transport of firebrands away from the fire front and ignition of spot fires, is one of the major mechanisms of wildfire propagation, particularly in heterogeneous fuels. It is known to cause substantial losses in Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) zones. Despite the significance and its far-reaching impacts, most coupled fire atmosphere models and the operational models fail to accurately factor in the role of firebrands in wildfire spread. The primary reason is due to the inherent stochasticity and complex multi-scale physics of the problem that increase the computational costs for a detailed model. Also, most fire models do not have reliable and physics-based spot fire ignition feedback, and few, if any, use parametric models. Such limitation has hampered our ability to quantify the contribution of firebrand showers in the overall rate of spread and accurately estimate the risks from this phenomenon. In this talk, I review our efforts to understand the different phases of the firebrand shower and elaborate on our new multi-scale approach in numerical simulations. Finally, I discuss the challenges in creating a high-fidelity numerical model of the firebrand shower at large scales.
Bio Ali Tohidi is a fire and fluid dynamicist. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and a Co-PI of the newly established NSF-IUCRC Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center (WIRC) at San Jose State University (SJSU). His research and development interests are at the nexus of experimental, data-driven, and mathematical modeling of complex systems across a wide range of spatiotemporal scales, particularly fire behavior and its effects on different ecosystems. His current efforts are focused on understanding the physics of wildfire spread and developing new models to better describe fire behavior throughout the landscape. Before joining SJSU, Dr. Tohidi worked as a Data Scientist to provide data-driven and data-centric solutions to Silicon Valley startups in different verticals.
