Communities and ecosystems in the Alaskan boreal forest are undergoing substantial change. People contribute to this change. They are also impacted by the consequences. For example, wildfire and spruce bark beetle (Dendroctonus rufipennis) outbreaks have increased in frequency and severity due to warming trends, affecting the ecosystem and services important to people. I conducted a study to ex...

BACKGROUND In late October 2003, a series of wildfires exposed urban populations in Southern California to elevated levels of air pollution over several weeks. Previous research suggests that short-term hospital admissions for respiratory outcomes increased specifically as a result of these fires. OBJECTIVE We assessed the impact of a wildfire event during pregnancy on birth weight among term...

In the western United States, mountain pine beetles (MPBs) have killed pine trees across 71,000 km(2) of forest since the mid-1990s, leading to widespread concern that abundant dead fuels may increase area burned and exacerbate fire behavior. Although stand-level fire behavior models suggest that bark beetle-induced tree mortality increases flammability of stands by changing canopy and forest f...

Over 21,000 future California residential wildfire risk scenarioswere developed on amonthly 1/8° grid, using statistical wildfire models. We explore interactions between two global emissions scenarios, three climate models, six spatially explicit population growth scenarios derived from two growth models, and a range of parameters defining properties’ vulnerability to loss. Scenarios are evalua...

One of the major issues in the southern wildland-urban interface is the loss of homes to wildfire. For homeowners who live in an area with a medium to high risk of wildfire, this document provides useful information for protecting your property (see University of Florida/IFAS publication FOR 71 “Landscaping in Florida with Fire in Mind” to determine your wildfire risk, http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/...

This paper examines the timing of protective action recommendations in relationship to the distance of wildfire to a threatened community using exploratory map animation. The 2003 Southern California Wildfires were animated to assist in understanding the complex interaction between fire progression and warnings to threatened communities. Exploratory map animation provides a useful post-event an...

This paper reviews a recent RedfishGroup project for the City of Santa Fe Fire and Police Department integrating wildfire simulation and agent-based modeling of traffic dynamics. Visualizations of the evacuation dynamics were used to communicate with citizens dangers faced during evacuations and to explore when shelter-in-place is a reasonable alternative to evacuation. Additional uses of the m...

Wildland fire in the South commands considerable attention, given the expanding wildland urban interface (WUI) across the region. Much of this growth is propelled by higher income retirees and others desiring natural amenity residential settings. However, population growth in the WUI increases the likelihood of wildfire fire ignition caused by people, as humans account for 93% of all wildfires ...

Humans have a long history of activity in Mediterranean Basin landscapes. Spatial heterogeneity in these landscapes hinders our understanding about the impacts of changes in human activity on ecological processes, such as wildfire. The use of spatially-explicit models that simulate processes at fine scales should aid the investigation of spatial patterns at the broader, landscape scale. Here, w...