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Published Wildfire Studies

Study: Satellite-based aerosol optical depth estimates over the continental U.S. during the 2020 wildfire season: Roles of smoke and land cover

Abstract:  Wildfires produce smoke that can affect an area >1000 times the burn extent, with far-reaching human health, ecologic, and...

Study: Climate change greatly escalates forest disturbance risks to US property values

Abstract:  Anthropogenic climate change is projected to drive increases in climate extremes and climate-sensitive ecosystem disturbances such as wildfire with...

Study: Future climate risks from stress, insects and fire across US forests

Abstract:  Forests are currently a substantial carbon sink globally. Many climate change mitigation strategies leverage forest preservation and expansion, but...

2024 Wildfire Hackathon

The 2nd annual 24-hour Wilkes Climate Solutions Hackathon will be January 26~27, 2024, at the Crocker Science Center and virtual!...

Study: Incorporating a canopy parameterization within a coupled fire‐atmosphere model to improve a smoke simulation for a prescribed burn

Abstract:  Forecasting fire growth, plume rise and smoke impacts on air quality remains a challenging task. Wildland fires dynamically interact...

Study: QES-Fire: a dynamically coupled fast-response wildfire model

Abstract:  A microscale wildfire model, QES-Fire, that dynamically couples the fire front to microscale winds was developed using a simplified...

Study: Fast Fire Simulations Over Idealized Terrain Using QES-Fire

Abstract:  The significant increase in the number of wildfires in the western United States is becoming a larger threat to...

Study: Adaptation of QES-Fire, a dynamically coupled fast response wildfire model for heterogeneous environments

Abstract:  Background: Modelling of fire front progression is challenging due to the large range of spatial and temporal scales involved in...

Study: Measurements from inside a thunderstorm driven by wildfire: The 2019 FIREX-AQ field experiment

Abstract:  The 2019 Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality (FIREX-AQ) field experiment obtained a diverse set...

Study: Using geographic information to analyze wildland firefighter situational awareness: Impacts of spatial resolution on visibility assessment

Abstract:  Wildland firefighters must be able to maintain situational awareness to ensure their safety. Crew members, including lookouts and crew...

Study: Using airborne lidar and machine learning to predict visibility across diverse vegetation and terrain conditions

Abstract:  Visibility analyses, used in many disciplines, rely on viewshed algorithms that map locations visible to an observer based on...

Study: Modeling global indices for estimating non-photosynthetic vegetation cover

Abstract:  Non-photosynthetic vegetation (NPV) includes plant litter, senesced leaves, and crop residues. NPV plays an essential role in terrestrial ecosystem processes, and is...

Study: Assessing potential safety zone suitability using a new online mapping tool

Abstract:  Safety zones (SZs) are critical tools that can be used by wildland firefighters to avoid injury or fatality when...

Study: Predicting the variability in pedestrian travel rates and times using crowdsourced GPS data

Abstract:  Accurately predicting pedestrian travel times is critically valuable in emergency response, wildland firefighting, disaster management, law enforcement, and urban planning. However,...

Study: Scaled biomass estimation in woodland ecosystems: Testing the individual and combined capacities of satellite multispectral and lidar data

Abstract:  Airborne laser scanning (ALS) data enable accurate modeling and mapping of aboveground biomass (AGB), but the limited spatial and temporal extents of...

Study: Theoretical uncertainty analysis of satellite retrieved aerosol optical depth associated with surface albedo & aerosol optical properties

Abstract:  Deriving aerosol optical depth (AOD) from space-borne observations is still challenging due to uncertainties associated with sensor calibration drift,...

Study: Assessment of smoke plume height products derived from multisource satellite observations for wildfire in the western US.

Abstract:  As wildfires intensify and fire seasons lengthen across the western U.S., the development of applicable models that can predict...

Study: Statistical Comparison and Assessment of Four Fire Emissions Inventories for 2013 and a Large Wildfire in the Western United States

Abstract:  Wildland fires produce smoke plumes that impact air quality and human health. To understand the effects of wildland fire...

Study: Toward Simulating Dire Wildfire Scenarios

Abstract:  Recent extreme wildfires are motivating unprecedented evacuation planning. A critical need is to consider dire scenarios that allow less...

Study: Modeling Wildfire Smoke Feedback Mechanisms Using a Coupled Fire-Atmosphere Model With a Radiatively Active Aerosol Scheme (July 2019)

Abstract:  During the summer of 2015, a number of large wildfires burned across Northern California in areas of localized topographic...

Study: Evaluation of Novel NASA Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer and Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite Aerosol Products and Assessment of Smoke Height Boundary Layer Ratio During Extreme Smoke Events in the Western USA

Abstract:  We analyze new aerosol products from NASA satellite retrievals over the western USA during August 2013, with special attention...

Study: Future climate risks from stress, insects and fire across US forests (May 2022)

Abstract:  Forests are currently a substantial carbon sink globally. Many climate change mitigation strategies leverage forest preservation and expansion, but...

Study: Indigenous land-use reduced catastrophic wildfires on the Fish Lake Plateau (April 2021)

Abstract:  Climatic conditions exert an important influence on wildfire activity in the western United States; however, Indigenous farming activity may...

Study: Wildfire smoke trends worsening for Western U.S. (April 2021)

Abstract:  Combining multiple sources of information on atmospheric composition, wildland fire emissions, and fire area burned, we link decadal air...

Study: Wildfire plumes in the Western US are reaching greater heights and injecting more aerosols aloft as wildfire activity intensifies (July 2022)

Abstract: By producing a first-of-its-kind, decadal-scale wildfire plume rise climatology in the Western U.S. and Canada, we identify trends toward...

Study: A climate risk analysis of Earth’s forests in the 21st century (Sep. 2022)

Abstract:  Climate change is having negative effects on forests through extreme heat, drought, and disturbances. Predicting the impact of future...

Study: Climate change greatly escalates forest disturbance risks to US property values (Aug. 2023)

Abstract:  Anthropogenic climate change is projected to drive increases in climate extremes and climate-sensitive ecosystem disturbances such as wildfire with...

Study: Community helps scientists evaluate wildfire smoke forecasts (Nov. 2020)

Abstract: Smoke forecasts for wildfires in central Utah were evaluated using low-cost air quality sensors and measurements from an instrument...