Wildfires are widely known in the Western United States, but in recent years, they have made their way east – most recently into South and North Carolina. Where will they be next, and how are people and communities managing the risk of wildfire?
Faculty in the School of Environment and Natural Resources (SENR) are investigating these questions and more to better prepare and inform land managers and train students for the future of land management. SENR is part of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at The Ohio State University.
Understanding efforts to mitigate wildfire risk
Associate Professor Matt Hamilton recently discussed in Ohio State News some of the questions about wildfires and, in particular, some of the more recent mega-fires we are seeing that pose very large risks to homes, assets and ecosystems. Hamilton draws on studies he and collaborators have conducted to understand efforts to mitigate wildfire risk, and
highlighted the importance of collaborative approaches to land management.
"One of the challenging things about managing wildfire risk is that large fires typically burn across ownership boundaries, which means that different groups of people have to work together to coordinate all sorts of activities, including pre-fire fuel treatments and post-fire clean up, along with response to fires themselves," Hamilton said. "These groups don’t always see eye to eye about which values at stake should take priority, but when collaborative risk mitigation is effective, it’s because groups have figured out how to build trust and norms of reciprocity, which can help them work towards common goals despite their differences. States like Ohio might not experience the large-scale fires that are becoming more common in western states, but the lessons learned in those regions are just as relevant, for overcoming collective action challenges associated with the use of fire as a tool for forest management."
Understanding vulnerabilities and habitat change
Recognizing the important role forests play in the lives and livelihoods of people, as well as their role in supporting habitat for wildlife, Steve Matthews, associate professor in the SENR is investigating forest ecosystem vulnerability and how habitats change and evolve with climate change, specifically addressing how forests and bird species’ habitats of the eastern United States are impacted. Wildfires can be a source of vulnerability and land fragmentation with adverse impacts on forests and wildlife habitat. This information is being utilized to identify adaptation and management strategies in the face of changing climate and the real possibility of wildfire.
"Developing tools that enable land managers to apply their skill and local knowledge to broad scale accelerated changes is a critical piece of maintaining healthy and projective forests. Our collaborative research synthesized into products such as Climate Change Tree Atlas and regional vulnerability assessments are being used to develop on the ground planning and application of adaptative silviculture to address shifting conditions," Matthews said. "In a recent article we show that across North America the potential for emergence of conditions where some current forest communities are lost and novel communities emerge – this finding points to the importance of understanding how the various pressures on forests will respond to continued environmental change."
Understanding fire behavior and spread
Faculty have also secured funding to develop autonomous unmanned aerial systems (UAS) technology and are conducting missions during prescribed burns that are used for wildfire prevention and mitigation. Associate Professor of Forest Ecosystem Analysis and Management Roger Williams is part of a National Science Foundation (NSF) project seeking to use drone technology to understand fire behavior and spread in Eastern forests. These burns will help to develop fire behavior models and be used to develop Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)-based fire behavior models for both prescribed and wildland fires. The research team has organized and developed a workshop on the use of robotics in wildland fire management to be held in Atlanta, GA, and is part of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers International Conference on Robotics. The workshop will bring together researchers and practitioners working to advance the integration of heterogeneous autonomous robots across all stages of wildland fire management through multidisciplinary work in guidance, navigation, control, sensing, computer vision, communications, novel design, security, high fidelity computation, operations, policy, and beyond.
"This workshop will provide an exchange of knowledge and ideas between researchers and practitioners so that we can become more effective in utilizing AI and robotics to develop real-time fire behavior models and mapping. This has never been done before and moves from the traditional static models to the more dynamic models," Williams said.
Training students in land management
Red Card certification is becoming more of a requirement for many natural resource management jobs as prescribed burns are increasingly used as a management tool in a variety of ecosystem contexts. Students at The Ohio State University through a sequenced course offered by SENR – Wildland Fire Management – have the unique opportunity to learn, practice and participate in a real prescribed burn and gain training to receive federal Red Card certification. Red Card certification is required before an individual can work on wildland fires or prescribed burns. To become certified, students must pass two federal exams administered in ENR 3335.01 and ENR 3335.02 and pass a physical fitness test.
"Many government organizations and NGOs involved in land management require red card certification of employees so that they can participate in prescribed burns and serve on wildland fire crews if it becomes necessary," said Williams, who teaches the course. "Certification also serves as a steppingstone for career advancement in the wildland fire field, which has multiple career paths," Williams said.