Research Archives - Page 2 of 8

Lessons from LA – what do we do now?

David BruceJanuary 13, 2025January 13, 2025California, Evacuations, Fire behavior, Prescribed Fire, Prevention, Research6 Comments

Many of the fires in southern California remain active but there is no shortage of views on what went wrong or right, what could or couldn’t be done, who is to blame and what do we all do now?

Wildfire Today is keen to find the most important lessons to be learnt from these fires.

Terms like “unprecedented” and “unpredicted” are not helpful – especially when we have seen it before and knew it could happen again. Those term take away responsibility and action. They excuse the fact that things could have been done, by many.

Dr Marty Alexander, long time Canadian wildland fire researcher, has reminded Wildfire Today of the 1974 publication by Clive M. Countryman, “Can Southern California Wildland Conflagrations be Stopped?”.

Countryman was at the time of writing a wildland fire behavior scientist with the USDA Forest Service in southern California. His paper was a reflection of the 1970 fire season in California where 16 people died and more than 200 000 hectares of land burned, and around 700 homes lost.

His statement on The Fire Problem barely differs from today:

- Climate, fuels, topography and people create fire problems

Relatively few fires become conflagrations
Conflagrations are most frequent during Santa Ana winds
Suppression of Santa Ana fires is difficult

His other conclusions include:

Fire prevention has limited value
Firefighting techniques and equipment and not adequate

His solutions then rely on a range of fuel modification measures.

For more nostalgia, watch these 1971 newsreels – on the same topic, same problem:

Deign for Disaster

Countdown to Calamity

Having looked back to see what we already know, Wildfire Today now turns to finding a way through new wildfire challenges.

Here are some tough questions for starters:

Evacuations

To have a large fire in such a heavily populated area with so few deaths or injuries is extraordinary. This suggests the evacuation process was largely successful – people were moved out of harms way. And yet we saw those abandoned vehicles on narrow mountainous roads that funnelled people onto Palisades Drive and Sunset Boulevard , panicked residents fleeing on foot, bulldozers shunting cars off the road to gain access for fire fighting vehicles – that’s not how an orderly evacuation is meant to work, that is last-minute, panicked fleeing. There are many international examples of disorderly evacuations going horribly wrong.

Is there are better way to get thousands of people out of the way of a fast moving wildfire? If evacuations occur well before the flames arrive that would help. But how early do you do early evacuations? When is it too late to leave? Where do 100,000 people evacuate to?

Suppression

As Carpenter noted in 1971 we need to all understand that once a fire gets to this size under these conditions all attempts to simply put it out are futile. The focus is on protecting people and strategic assets. The fire fighters on the ground and in the air understand this. Does the wider community understand this?? Does this explain all the anger that “someone should have done something”, and the thinking that if it wasn’t for a few empty hydrants and grounded aircraft (due to high winds) the fire would have been suppressed?

Fuel management

Many, many others since Carpenter have said you have got to better manage the fuels if you want to have any chance of managing the fire. What does good fuel management look like in southern California and when do we know that we have done enough? Would have it made a difference for these fires when it looks more like an urban conflagration with house to house burning?

Built environment

Are we living in the wrong places? If we know that wildfires are inevitable, why do we build homes in the middle of the highest wildfire risk areas? Any other day, it is clearly a wonderful place to live. But on days like 7 January 2025, this place was hell on earth. Do we place faith in the development of “fireproof” structures, or do we just accept that homes will burn?

Recovery

Once the emergency response phase settles and the debris is cleared, what does long term recovery look like? How do we build back better without just repeating the same mistakes? How does a community put aside the blame and divisions to work together on building long term resilience, and be ready for the next, inevitable, big fire?

There have been many articulate voices in the last few days with this Los Angeles Times article one of the better ones. It draws on wildfire researcher Jack Cohen, who encourages us to abandon our thoughts that this was a wildland fire and see it more as an urban fire that leapt from house to house, and fire historian Stephen Pyne who places today’s fire within a century of fires across a whole continent:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-11/fire-experts-asses-los-angeles-blazes-amid-changing-times

High-severity wildfires the ‘main risk’ to threatened Canada Lynx, researchers say

Hunter BasslerJanuary 13, 2025January 24, 2025Research, Uncategorized, United States, Wildfire

A now-rare forest carnivore faces numerous hurdles to continue living in its usual habitat, wildfire chiefly among them.

Canadian Lynx numbers have declined throughout most of their range in the United States, according to the Endangered Species Coalition. Causes for their decline include habitat loss, urbanization, and genetic isolation from populations in Canada due to the fragmentation of their environment.

Now, the remaining morsels of the species’ habitat is facing additional threats, straining the animals even further. A recent study used GPS data and scientific modeling to identify the remaining lynx habitat in the forests of western Colorado, southern Wyoming, and northern New Mexico, and considered over 40 habitat or environmental characteristics to identify the area’s biggest risks.

The maps found that lynx habitat in these areas is now sparse, patchy, and poorly connected, existing only in narrow bands due to Colorado’s complex mountainous terrain. Researchers also said that around one-third of the likely habitat overlapped with multiple disturbances between the study’s timeframe of 1990 and 2022, including forest insect outbreaks (31%), wildfires (5%), and forest management activities like tree harvest and prescribed burning (3%).

“Although fire disturbance from 1990-2022 overlapped only 5% of likely lynx habitat in this area, we believe that frequent, high-severity fire is the main risk to lynx in high-elevation forests moving forward,” Dr. John Squires, the study’s principal investigator and a Rocky Mountain Research Station research wildlife biologist, told Phys.org.

Credit: Keith Williams via U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Researchers predicted wildfire would be a primary disturbance factor for the animal’s critical habitat. The 94,545-hectare Cameron Peak Fire, the 78,433-hectare East Troublesome Fire, and the 56,254-hectare Pine Gulch Fire, all burned lynx habitat during the 2020 fire season.

Despite the low overlap percentage the study eventually found, the scientists still considered wildfire to be the highest threat to lynx habitat, in part due to projected increasing trends in wildfire frequency and severity. Some fire threats have already demonstrated the fire vulnerability of lynx habitat.

“The West Fork Fire Complex…burned at high severity across 442 km² of the San Juan Mountains in 2013, impacting one of the most important patches of lynx habitat in the Southern Rockies,” the study said. “In general, lynx avoid fire-impacted landscapes for at least ~ 25 yrs, likely because stand-replacing fires of high severity that are common in subalpine systems reset much of the impacted area to a stand initiation stage.”

For example, fires in Washington’s North Cascades Ecosystem in 2o13 and 2020 burned an estimated 32% of lynx habitat and reduced the species’ carrying capacity between 66% and 73%, the researchers said. Ultimately, how much fires affect lynx landscape depends on the extent, frequency, and severity of the fires.

“Therefore, despite low current overlap, a central conservation issue for lynx and forest management in the Southern Rockies is how to “defend” Likely, in situ habitat from frequent fire disturbance with climate change,” the researchers said.

Click here to read the full study.

How do people actually use a fire map? Researchers are finding out.

David BruceJanuary 6, 2025Australia, Fire behavior, Research

How well do you understand public wildfire prediction maps?

And does the average member of the public understand these maps?

A research team in Australia is looking at a range of maps available to the public during fire emergencies to determine if the public understand them enough to take the right action to protect their lives and their communities.

Researchers from four universities are collaborating with all fire agencies in Australia for a national view on bushfire prediction maps. The Black Summer fires of 2019/20 prompted the need to better understand the potential of these maps. At the height of the fires, the New South Wales Rural Fire Service was concerned that many residents and holiday-makers did not fully appreciate the risk. So, they began publishing detailed predictive maps in the hope that more information would lead to better household decisions. But did more detailed maps better help the public? Hence, the need for this research.

Predictive maps display critical information, but knowledge is limited on the best design or how maps are actually used during active fires. As Dr Erica Kuligowski, Principal Research Fellow at RMIT University and Natural Hazards Research Australia explains:

“Maps are an important way to communicate spatial information and they are increasingly being used in natural hazards like bushfires. However, no evidence base exists on how these maps should be designed and communicated as well as how they should be disseminated to the public.”

Bushfire prediction maps used in Australia — A range of bushfire and weather prediction maps used in Australia

The researchers surveyed more than 3,000 people across all Australian states and territories in 2022 and 2023 to see if and how the public understood maps differently from the fire agencies.

They were shown mocked-up maps with varied levels of detail and asked the following questions:

Do you understand the purpose of this map?
What action is it prompting you to take?
How risky do you see the situation?
What emotions are you feeling?
What actions are you going to take?

They were also invited to provide open feedback, which provided a deeper level of insight for the researchers, particularly on whether it was the visuals, the text, or a combination of both that were seen as more important.

Public responses to uses of bushfire prediction maps — Public responses on uses of bushfire prediction maps in Australia.

The survey participants used a range of maps during bushfires, including local fire agency maps, the Bureau of Meteorology, Google Maps, and third-party weather or hazard mapping platforms, like Windy app, Digital Earth Australia (DEA) hotspots map, and bushfire.io.

Maps were checked more often at certain times during the bushfire, especially for early information (when the fire had not yet spread to participants’ immediate areas) or when the fire was moving quickly. Many participants used maps frequently, between 20 to 50 times each day.

A combination of information sources was used by participants to get a broader picture of their bushfire situation, with maps only one tool in their information toolbox. Community meetings were particularly useful in increasing understanding of fire spread prediction maps, as fire agency experts were on hand to explain the maps in more detail and answer questions.

Responses identified a wide range of uses for the maps, with different purposes more important to some than others, including to:

identify where they were in relation to the bushfire
gather information about the bushfire and what to do next
monitor the extent or rate of spread using the burnt areas shown on the map
cross-reference map information with other sources
confirm or explain the physical cues that they were seeing around them (for example, smoke or emergency response crews and vehicles responding to the fire)
make judgments about how the fire might spread and the level of risk
inform or warn others who may be at risk
monitor the impact of the fire on their or others’ properties, especially after evacuation.

The research is ongoing to provide guidelines on good structure to be translated into agency policies from 2025. In brief, the study found that bushfire maps must be updated promptly, clearly display their time and date of issue, and include relevant information, with an understanding that including too much or complex information may be problematic for comprehension.

For more resources on this study, including two webinars, go to:

Hazardous Webinar – Community perceptions and understanding of predictive maps

The research is published in the International Journal of Wildland Fire

Understanding the challenges in bushfire map use and effective decision-making amongst the Australian public.

How does this compare with maps used elsewhere around the world? Are the challenges the same? Show Wildfire Today some of the better examples you have seen.

Helping smokejumpers to predict wind turbulence

David BruceDecember 13, 2024Research, Safety, Wildland Firefighter

Wind turbulence is a well-known factor in the complex wildland fire environment. Sometimes it is the wind shear over vegetation, buildings, or terrain, and other times it’s the buoyant forces from solar surface heating or thermal plume injections from the fire itself.

Smokejumpers approaching landing zone in 2011. Photo: Mike McMillan

For a smokejumper, parachuting from a low-flying aircraft in a remote and rugged landscape, turbulence near the ground at the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) is of particular concern.

Scientists at the Rocky Mountain Research Station have published a study on how to better predict terrain-induced turbulence to assist smokejumper operations.

Smokejumpers are employed by the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service and the Department of Interior Bureau of Land Management throughout the western US and Alaska. These smokejumpers use Ram-Air style parachutes, which require forward speed to maintain lift (USFS 2018). Small wind fluctuations can drastically impact parachute aerodynamics. Existing protocols to assess ABL turbulence during jump operations include the release of weighted streamers to visually assess the winds and turbulence. Numerous hard landings, serious accidents, and fatalities have been attributed to unexpected near-surface turbulence during training and operational jumps. Searching “Smokejumper Accident” on the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center’s website shows an average of four serious jump injuries per year between 2015–2023 in which turbulence potentially played a factor.

Wind flow over ridges can create large wake zones with increased turbulence that extend far downwind. This phenomenon likely contributed to the hard landing that resulted in a smokejumper fatality during a jump on the Eicks Fire in New Mexico in 2021 The research team used WindNinja, the high-resolution diagnostic wind model for wildland fire applications, to investigate surface winds and turbulence during the jump operation on the Eicks Fire. The findings indicate that the jump took place in the wake of a tall upwind ridge that created a large re-circulation zone with areas of turbulence.

WindNinja is routinely used by fire managers in the US and around the world and can drive operational fire spread models such as FlamMap and Prometheus. These uses take wind speed and direction predictions from WindNinja, however, the research notes that WindNinja can also generate information about the near-surface atmosphere, such as turbulence and shear. The researchers say these capabilities, to date, have not been made accessible to end users or formally assessed for accuracy by the development team. WindNinja has been evaluated in the field but not in the really rugged terrain where smokejumper operations often occur. Here, wind modeling is far more complex and challenging.

This study concluded that WindNinja’s lesser-known ability to simulate wind turbulence could be of use for assessing smokejumper operations under moderate to high wind conditions.

They also suggest that although this work focused on smoke jumping, real-time turbulence predictions from WindNinja could be useful for other near-surface firefighting aerial operations.

Predicting terrain-induced wind turbulence for smokejumper parachute operations is an open-access article in the International Journal of Wildland Fire.

More than 1.5 million people die annually from wildfire air pollution

Hunter BasslerDecember 11, 2024Research, Smoke, Wildfire

Wildfire smoke is increasingly encroaching on urban and rural spaces throughout the world. Increasingly frequent wildfires in Siberia are projected to cause thousands of deaths and billions in costs for East Asia. Smoke temporarily covered all U.S. lakes between 2019 and 2021.

Researchers, however, know little about the global mortality burden related to smoke pollution. A new study published in The Lancet scientific journal sought to learn more about that burden.

Researchers found that 1.53 million deaths per year were attributable to wildfire-driven air pollution between 2000 and 2019, including 0.45 million deaths from cardiovascular issues and 0.22 million respiratory deaths. Particulate matter pollution contributed to 77.6% of deaths, while 22.4% of the deaths were attributed to surface ozone pollution.

Smoke Beaver Fire — Smoke at the Beaver Fire in Northern California. August 12, 2014. Photo by Bill Gabbert.

Researchers calculated particulate matter and surface ozone from wildfires across 59 countries between 2000 and 2019 and obtained relative risks for both the short-term and long-term impact of exposures to particulate matter and surface ozone on cardiovascular and respiratory mortality. The data was obtained from previously published meta-analyses on particulate matter and surface ozone and from the Global Burden of Diseases Study 2019 published by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Over 90% of all attributable deaths were in low-income and middle-income regions. Sub-Saharan Africa had 606,769 deaths from wildfire smoke pollution, southeast Asia had 206,817 deaths, south Asia had 170,762 deaths, and east Asia had 147,291 deaths. The five countries with the largest death totals were China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Indonesia, and Nigeria.

Deaths attributed to cardiovascular issues saw an annual increase of 1.67% per year between 2000 and 2019, the study said. Deaths attributed to respiratory issues did not have statistically significant trends. In 2019, the attributable mortality rates in low-income countries remained four times higher than those in high-income countries, though this had reduced from nine times in 2000.

Wildfire smoke directly increases dementia risk, study find

Hunter BasslerDecember 9, 2024Research, Wildfire

A study of more than 1.6 million people in California found a direct correlation between exposure to wildfire smoke and increased dementia risk.

The research, published in the JAMA Neurology scientific journal, used electronic health record data between January 2008 to December 2019 among members of the Kaiser Permanente Southern California system, which serves 4.7 million people in the state. The study focused on people aged 60 years old or older but excluded people who had a dementia diagnosis before cohort entry.

The study found that people exposed to fine particulate matter PM_2.5from wildfires had an 18% increase in the odds of a dementia diagnosis, compared with an only 1% increase in people exposed to non-wildfire PM_2.5. The most at-risk subjects were less than 75 years old, were from racially minoritized subgroups, and those living in high-poverty census tracts.

“As the climate changes, interventions focused on reducing wildfire PM_2.5 exposure may reduce dementia diagnoses and related inequities,” the researchers said.

s2t airtanker holy fire — An S-2T air tanker comes out of the smoke to drop retardant near the communication towers on Santiago Peak in Southern California August 8, 2018 as the Holy Fire approaches. HPWREN image.

It’s not the first time wildfire smoke has been linked to neurological hazards. University of New Mexico Health Sciences researchers published a study in 2021 that found people inhaled microscopic particles from woodsmoke which worked their way into the bloodstream and reached the brain. The particles put people at risk for neurological problems ranging from premature aging and various forms of dementia to depression and even psychosis.

READ MORE: Researchers find that wildfire smoke poses neurological hazards

“Past research has consistently identified an association between long-term PM_2.5 exposure and incident dementia, with varying magnitudes of association depending on study context, outcome ascertainment, and exposure averaging period,” researchers from the JAMA study said. “These results align with prior research consistently demonstrating that individual-level and area-level social determinants compound the risk of adverse health outcomes associated with climate-driven environmental exposures.”

Examples of how socioeconomic inequalities can exacerbate health issues from wildfire smoke include lower-quality housing increasing smoke infiltration and lack of air filtration systems to improve air quality during extreme smoke events.

“Future studies may wish to explicitly study these factors as effect modifiers,” the researchers said.

A fire whirl was spotted at the Park Fire in the early evening hours of July 25, 2024. ~ AlertCalifornia camera — A fire whirl was spotted at the Park Fire in the early evening hours of July 25, 2024.
~ AlertCalifornia camera

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