Breaking News: Wildfires

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Firefighters report that Western wildfires are starting earlier in the morning and dying down later at night, hampering their ability to recover and regroup before the next day’s flareup. A study shows why: The drying power of nighttime air over much of the Western U.S. has increased dramatically in the past 40 years.

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University of Utah researchers have developed a method to better predict if and when wildfire smoke might affect the ground-level air quality of nearby residents.

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Seeing the urgent need for change, a team of scientists from leading research universities, conservation organizations and government laboratories across the West has produced a synthesis of the scientific literature that clearly lays out the established science and strength of evidence on climate change, wildfire and forest management for seasonally dry forests. The goal is to give land managers and others across the West access to a unified resource that summarizes the best-available science so they can make decisions about how to manage their landscapes.

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A model of the eastern California forests of the Sierra Nevada looks at the longer-term future of wildfires under future climate change scenarios. Results show an initial roughly decade-long burst of wildfire activity, followed by recurring fires of decreasing area — a pattern that could apply to other drought-prone regions of the West.

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The Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) is dedicated to protecting these selfless men and women as they work to protect our communities.

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Irvine, Calif., July 22, 2021 – To meet an ambitious goal of carbon neutrality by 2045, California’s policymakers are relying in part on forests and shrublands to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, but researchers at the University of California, Irvine warn that future climate change may limit the ecosystem’s ability to perform this service.

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Wildfire smoke may greatly increase susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, according to new research from the Center for Genomic Medicine at the Desert Research Institute (DRI), Washoe County Health District (WCHD), and Renown Health (Renown) in Reno, Nev.

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Forest fires are already a global threat. "But considering how climate change is progressing, we are probably only at the beginning of a future that will see more and bigger forest fires," explains Rupert Seidl, Professor of Ecosystem Dynamics and Forest Management in Mountain Landscapes at TUM.

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Researchers say that government, public health agencies, and the public generally need to understand the mental health impacts of wildfire smoke as the world enters a time in which wildfire smoke events are prolonged events.

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Fire can put a tropical songbird's sex life on ice.

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Researchers from the University of Washington provide a first look at the probability of observing common birds as air pollution worsens during wildfire seasons. They found that smoke affected the ability to detect more than a third of the bird species studied in Washington state over a four-year period. Sometimes smoke made it harder to observe birds, while other species were actually easier to detect when smoke was present.

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PNNL researchers are expanding PNNL’s operational Rapid Analytics for Disaster Response (RADR) image analytics and modeling suite to predict the path of fires, floods and other natural disasters, giving first responders an upper hand. The suite utilizes a combination of image-capturing technology (satellite, airborne, and drone images), artificial intelligence, and cloud computing, to not only assess damage but predict it as well.

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Learn how campuses across the CSU continue to lead efforts in wildfire research, management and workforce preparation across multiple disciplines.

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Last fall, the Mullen fire west of Laramie raged for the better part of two months, burning more than 176,000 acres and 70 structures in Wyoming's Carbon and Albany counties, and in Jackson County, Colo.

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DHS S&T successfully tested four prototype technologies for early detection of wildfires in California this week.

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The increasing size and number of wildfires can lead to situations in which emergency managers must simply minimize human casualties--simulating these dire situations can help them adjust plans when there is less time to evacuate.