wildfire

Fire officials are bracing for an active fire season in Northern California as high temperatures dry out forests. Southern California will likely see a typical season.

When asked to picture a wildfire, most people imagine a forest—trees burning, smoke billowing, and flames casting shadows. Images of wildfire are becoming more familiar as large fires make headlines across the US. But the effects of fire extend beyond forests. Streams and rivers flowing through burned areas are also impacted by wildfire and can carry those impacts to downstream communities and ec…

Hundreds of firefighters continue to battle the wind-driven fire in the Simi Valley area as at least one home is destroyed More than 17,000 people were under evacuation orders in southern California on Tuesday as a wildfire threatened suburban homes. The wind-driven Sandy fire was reported on Monday in the hills above Simi Valley, about 30 miles (48km) north-west of Los Angeles . Continue reading…

A human-caused fire spread to more than 10,000 acres on Sunday night, destroying two structures and forcing the evacuation of 11 people.

Background Wildfire risk in the United States is rising and remains a land management priority. The quantitative wildfire risk assessment (QWRA) framework integrates fuels, topography, weather and values at risk to estimate the potential change in value from wildfire. Within this, response functions (RFs) represent how values respond to fire intensity. These are often based on expert judgment, bu…

This study investigated the ignition and burning behavior of single foliage elements and naturally occurring foliage groups under controlled convective heating. Across all species, droplet ejection and combustion was observed, with more frequent ejection and burning occurring in foliage groups. The combustion of ejected droplets represented a distinct ignition phenomenon and contributed to early …

Researchers used wind speeds, topography, and vegetation availability to model the outcomes of the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, including the Hughes Fire, seen here. Credit: Andrew Avitt, USDA Forest Service/Flickr , Public Domain

Land and Atmosphere Precursors to Fuel Loading, Wildfire Ignition and Post‐Fire Recovery Alizadeh, Mohammad Reza; Adamowski, Jan; Entekhabi, Dara Land surface‐atmosphere coupling and soil moisture memory are shown to combine into a distinct temporal pattern for wildfire incidents across the western United States. We investigate the dynamic interplay of observed soil moisture, vegetation water con…

The huge, long-lasting wildfires that have become increasingly common in recent years can cause changes in soil chemistry that affect water contamination, air quality and plant growth. These changes, however, are poorly monitored and rarely factor into post-fire recovery efforts or risk assessments, according to a CSU-led article published May 14 in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment. The post CS…

Abstract:  Safety zones (SZs) are critical tools that can be used by wildland firefighters to avoid injury or fatality when engaging a fire. Effective SZs provide safe separation distance (SSD) from surrounding flames, ensuring that a fire’s heat cannot cause burn injury to firefighters within the SZ. Evaluating SSD on the ground can be challenging, […]

Abstract:  As wildfires intensify and fire seasons lengthen across the western U.S., the development of applicable models that can predict the density of smoke plumes and track wildfire-induced air pollution exposures has become critical. Wildfire smoke plume height is a key indicator of the vertical placement of plume mass emitted from wildfire-related aerosol sources in […]

A new study led by the USDA Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station examines the context surrounding the 2020 Labor Day fires in western Oregon and Washington.

UC scientists and researchers discussed fire in the wildland-urban interface, or WUI, at the second UC wildfire symposium Wednesday. UC President Michael Drake began by explaining what was discussed in the first wildfire symposium before touching on the WUI, where the built environment comes in contact with the natural lands. “Here in California, we are seeing firsthand… The post UC wildfire symp…

This new online seminar series will cover the breadth of wildland fire research relevant to California and introduce researchers to new topics and research groups across the state. Topics will include fire weather, wildfire risk, fire ecology, remote sensing, emissions, fire dynamics, fire modeling and public health. Featuring many early-career researchers, this series is aimed at… The post New C…

With a new $2 Million grant from the National Science Foundation, an interdisciplinary team of researchers including Adam Watts, Ph.D. of the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Reno are initiating […] The post Camp Fire tragedy leads to new wildfire research appeared first on DRI .

The 2014 Carlton Complex wildfire in north central Washington was the largest contiguous fire in state history. In just a single day, flames spread over 160,000 acres of forest and rangeland and ultimately burned more than 250,000 acres in the midst of a particularly hot, dry summer. The wildfire, driven by strong winds and explosive growth, was unprecedented in how it burned the landscape, destr…

In head fires, the fire travels in the same direction as the wind. Head fires produce the fastest rate of spread, highest flame lengths, and most intense fires. In the....

The International Conference on Fire Behaviour and Risk – Focus on Wildland Urban Interfaces, will take place in Alghero, Sardinia