The idea of using sensors to remotely measure things is not new. Aerial photos taken from hot air balloons were first proposed as a tool for mapping streets in the 1850s. In1941, a US Forest Service ranger developed a technique for mapping fuels with aeria lphotos. Recent advances in remote sensing have dramatically increased the amount of spatial information that can be generated for a given area. This webinar will look at some of the ways the Fire and Environmental Research Applications Team at the Seattle FireLab is using remote sensing to measure fuels and fire behavior. We’ll also discuss howthis information can improve our capacity to model fires.

Researchers from Colorado State University, the University of Oregon, and the University of Georgia are conducting a five-year study to understand how efforts that began as part of the US Forest Service Shared Stewardship Strategy develop over time, based on interviews with federal and state agency leadership, land managers, and other partners and stakeholders. 

Presenters: Courtney Schultz, Colorado State University Chad Kooistra, Colorado State University Heidi Huber-Stearns, University of Oregon Jesse Abrams, University of Georgia

In this work, we present a regional screening of Oregon and Washington communities to map wildfire evacuation vulnerability, assessed as the combination of wildfire hazard(burn probability and fire line intensity) and road network quality (assessed by simple geographic summaries of the paved road networks surrounding each town). Many places with relatively constrained road networks also coincide with high wildfire hazard. We hope that through this work, we can identify general geographic characteristics of communities that indicate greater wildfire evacuation vulnerability and help identify places that would benefit from more detailed analysis to aid in emergency response and preparedness. Alex Dye is a research associate at Oregon State University's College of Forestry, where he studies wildfire risk and climate change in the Western United States

Led by Susan Pritchard, Nick Povak, and Rebecca Lemons. 

This webinar offers an overview of overview of research to better understand drivers of fire severity, whats leading to really large wildfire events, and what these fires are leaving us to manage in the future. 

This webinar presents findings on factors that facilitate or frustrate cross-boundary wildfire risk management. 

This webinar describes the development of a Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) for Oregon and its incorporation into the Wildfire Risk Explorer tool mandated through State Senate Bill 762. We present an overview of social vulnerability and how it is measured, along with information on reliability, strengths, and limitations of SV indices and maps. We also walk through the SVI tool within the Oregon Wildfire Risk Explorer and provide time for questions and answers. Oregon Wildfire Risk Explorer: https://tools.oregonexplorer.info/OE_... OSU Scholars Archive record that includes county subdivision & tract level data: https://doi.org/10.7267/z890s265n Inquiries regarding the OSU wildfire risk maps should be directed to osuwildfirerisk@oregonstate.edu.

This webinar presented a preliminary overview of information collected from a recent survey of family forest owners in western Oregon and Washington. Presenters gave an overview of the larger project, presented results, and asked attendees about the data that was most interesting to them, as well as what other questions they had as the analysis phase for the data begins. Throughout the webinar attendees were welcomed to add insights and questions to a Jamboard session. The Jamboard for the webinar is available here: https://jamboard.google.com/d/1reS3q6...

In this webinar Francisco Escobedo of the US Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station summarizes a recent literature review of studies that focus on the environmental justice aspects of wildfire. He then presents preliminary findings on how different socio-demographic groups have been affected by wildfires across California in the last decade.

This webinar summarizes recent research examining the equity implications of rising wildfire risk and associated costs, including insurance coverage and the comparative costs for risk management activities in populations with different incomes. Presented by: Matthew R. Auer, Dean and Arch Professor of Public and International Affairs at the School of Public and International Affairs, University of Georgia.

In this deep dive webinar, Dr. Becky Kerns and collaborating scientists will present and synthesize results from a Joint Fire Science funded project aimed at understanding the current and future Ventenata dubia (ventenata) invasion in the Blue Mountains Ecoregion. Wildfires in 2014 and 2015 in the ecoregion reportedly spread in an unusual fashion owing to this invasive annual grass. Concern was raised that ventenata might be a “game-changer” for wildfire. Results from our studies show that ventenata has ecosystem transformation potential and influences landscape-scale fire across the ecoregion. We report these findings with management implications and place our results in the context of other plant invasion research. The webinar includes 90 minutes of scientific presentations with short Q&A, and ends with a 30-minute wrap-up and panel discussion.