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Wildfire Research

There are three global questions behind the wildfire research being conducted in support of the WALTER project:

• What is the current biogeography of the region (such as soils, vegetation, fuel load factors, elevation, aspect, and many other variables) relative to that of the past twenty years, and what changes have occurred over this time period?

• What correlations can be found with climatic conditions and events?

• How do these factors interact to produce particular types and levels of wildfire and of fire hazard?

To help address these questions and contribute to FCS-1, research is being conducted on creating fuel load models appropriate to Southwestern vegetation types and structure, deriving surface moisture from satellite imagery, and assessing the relationships between previous fire occurrence and the probability of fire in similar topographic and ecological conditions. The wildfire research is being conducted in concert with both the climate and fire history components.