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Prescribed burning on private land: reflections on recent law reform in Australia and California

Year of Publication
2023
Publication Type

Background. Prescribed fire is a critical tool for building resilience to changing fire regimes. Policymakers can accelerate the development of effective, adaptation-oriented fire governance by learning from other jurisdictions. Aims. We analyse reforms to prescribed fire governance to highlight improvements for fire hazard reduction and resilience. Methods.

Exploring the impact of airtanker drops on in-stand temperature and relative humidity

Year of Publication
2023
Publication Type

Background. There has been little quantification of the extent and duration of micro- meteorological changes within a forest after airtanker drops of water-based suppressant. It has been speculated that a period of prolonged relative humidity – referred to as a ‘relative humidity (RH) bubble’ – temporarily exists in the canopy understorey post-drop. Aims.

Downslope Wind-Driven Fires in the Western United States

Year of Publication
2023
Publication Type

Downslope wind-driven fires have resulted in many of the wildfire disasters in the western United States and represent a unique hazard to infrastructure and human life. We analyze the co-occurrence of wildfires and downslope winds across the western United States (US) during 1992–2020.

Quantifying the contribution of major carbon producers to increases in vapor pressure deficit and burned area in western US and southwestern Canadian forests

Year of Publication
2023
Publication Type

Increases in burned forest area across the western United States and southwestern Canada over the last several decades have been partially driven by a rise in vapor pressure deficit (VPD), a measure of the atmosphere’s drying power that is significantly influenced by human-caused climate change.

Projecting live fuel moisture content via deep learning

Year of Publication
2023
Publication Type

Background: Live fuel moisture content (LFMC) is a key environmental indicator used to monitor for high wildfire risk conditions. Many statistical models have been proposed to predict LFMC from remotely sensed data; however, almost all these estimate current LFMC (nowcasting models).

Burnover events identified during the 2018 Camp Fire

Year of Publication
2023
Publication Type

Background: The Camp Fire burned through communities in Butte County, California, on 8 November 2018. The fire destroyed over 18 000 structures and caused 85 fatalities, mostly within the first 12 h of the incident. Aims: A post-fire case study was conducted to learn from the devastating incident.