Research Database
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Leveraging the next generation of spaceborne Earth observations for fuel monitoring and wildland fire management
Year: 2024
Managing fuels is a key strategy for mitigating the negative impacts of wildfires on people and the environment. The use of satellite-based Earth observation data has become an important tool for managers to optimize fuel treatment planning at regional scales. Fortunately, several new sensors have been launched in the last few years, providing novel opportunities to enhance fuel characterization. Herein, we summarize the potential improvements in fuel characterization at large scale (i.e., hundreds to thousands of km2) with high spatial and spectral resolution arising from the use of new…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Visibility-informed mapping of potential firefighter lookout locations using maximum entropy modelling
Year: 2024
BackgroundSituational awareness is an essential component of wildland firefighter safety. In the US, crew lookouts provide situational awareness by proxy from ground-level locations with visibility of both fire and crew members.AimsTo use machine learning to predict potential lookout locations based on incident data, mapped visibility, topography, vegetation, and roads.MethodsLidar-derived topographic and fuel structural variables were used to generate maps of visibility across 30 study areas that possessed lookout location data. Visibility…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Few large or many small fires: Using spatial scaling of severe fire to quantify effects of fire-size distribution shifts
Year: 2024
As wildfire activity increases and fire-size distributions potentially shift in many forested regions worldwide, anticipating the spatial patterns of burn severity expected with future fire activity is critical for ecological understanding and informing management and policy. Because spatial patterns of burn severity are influenced by a complex mixture of drivers, they remain difficult to predict for any given burned landscape. At broader extents, however, spatial scaling relationships relating high-severity patch size and shape to overall fire size, when combined with scenarios regarding…
Publication Type: Journal Article