IUCRC Phase I, San Jose State University: Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center (WIRC)

San Jose State University Foundation, San Jose CA

Investigators

Abstract

This Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) on Wildfires, located at San Jose State University, provides tools, observational and predictive, and research results for use by first responders, those interested in risk analysis, and policy makers for communities and companies/utilities impacted by, and concerned about, wildfires. Center research thrusts include fire weather and atmospheric modeling and forecasting; fire behavior monitoring and modeling; wildfire management and policy, and climate change and wildfire risk. IUCRCs are innovative collaborations between universities and industry where funding from the National Science Foundation is used to fund Center administrative costs and industry provides financial support via membership fees, and other funding, to support Center research projects and student/postdoc salaries. Industry members contributing to the Center form its industrial advisory board that helps select research projects, proposed by Center faculty, that address the members’ collective research needs. Thus, research in an IUCRC is pre-competitive and fundamental with topics directed by its industrial advisory board to remove obstacles that are preventing their sector of the economy from moving forward. The San Jose State University IUCRC on wildfires will be working with industry, utilities, and government agencies to increase our knowledge of wildfires and their spread and explore their social and economic implications. It will also examine means of generating better evacuation compliance from impacted populations. The Center will develop tools and models resulting in better and more accurate simulations of wildfire initiation and simulation. The broader impacts of this Center are strong and multifaceted with significant societal and economic relevance because wildfires in the western US and around the world are a serious problem that cause loss of life, loss of property, and serious environmental and ecosystem damage that lasts for decades. The present exacerbation in global warming will increase wildfire occurrence, so research products produced by this Center will help industry, communities and countries impacted by wildfires. Products to be generated include improved understanding of file and firebrand transport, modeling tools to help utilities better manage their assets in times of high fire danger, provision of critical information to first responders during the fire season, and prediction of fire front paths and fire line rates of advance. Interest in the Center by organizations in foreign countries impacted by wildfires, like Australia and Portugal, will extend the results of this Center’s work globally. The Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center (WIRC) is an Industry-University Cooperative Research Center whose purpose is to conduct high-impact wildfire research to provide tools and informed policies to communities and industry stakeholders around the world. Its mission is to develop new prediction and observational systems to better understand extreme fire behavior in a changing climate. The Center will also develop an integrated approach to solving the nation’s wildfire problem by providing cross-disciplinary solutions that span the physical, social, and economic scientific fields. The Center will contribute to the following wildfire sciences: fire weather and coupled fire-atmosphere modeling and forecasting which will involve the development of new fire danger metrics for industry stakeholders; fire behavior monitoring and modeling for which new theories, observations, and fire and fire brand spread models for will be developed for forecast systems; wildfire management and policy which examines the nexus of the social and natural contexts of wildfire management and adaptation across wildfire prone landscapes; and climate change and wildfire risk. For these research thrusts, high-resolution reanalysis and in-situ data will be used to determine historical trends and models will be used to quantify the influence of these determinants on fire behavior. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.