CALFIRE and the state’s Air Resources Board have joined with the University of Nevada in Reno to model and map fire-vulnerable forests to help mitigate catastrophic wildfire risk. With advanced technology and large amounts of data and computer power, the university aims to research forest vegetation changes over large landscapes.
The “GigaFire Project” will use remote sensing technology and process-based models with research producing statewide and localized fuel maps to identify areas of most significant risk and model scenarios to predict how land management can mitigate fire risk. CARB has donated to the research effort 570,000 dollars while CALFIRE donated another 1.8 million.
With a successful program, researchers hope to remove the human element in assessing fire movement and damage with technology that can figure out down to the branch what burned and what didn’t to bring a better understanding of which fire moves and the best practices to reduce the chances of extreme forest fires.