Project Grant 15IG11132762420

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) provides $606,882 to Florida State University (FSU) to develop and validate a new predictive modeling framework that incorporates canopy biomechanics, aerodynamics, and fire-atmosphere interactions to better understand and predict wildfire behavior in forested areas. The research aims to capture the dynamic motion of real tree canopies and their effects on fire spread, addressing limitations...

This $836,720 project grant from the National Science Foundation Division of Environmental Biology will support research integrating modern and paleoecological perspectives to disentangle grazer and climate controls on fire activity. Over a three-year period from January 2023 through December 2025, the awardee Yale University will combine data from nine present-day herbivore exclusion experiments, observational records from remote sensing and field monitoring, and five paleoecological archives...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Office of International Science and Engineering (CFDA 47.079) supports an initiative titled "FIRE-NET: PALEOFIRE-AFRICA: BUILDING A DATA-DRIVEN NETWORK FOR LONG-TERM FIRE-ECOSYSTEM RESILIENCE". The $197,292 award, effective from January 1, 2026 to December 31, 2028, aims to create standards for past global fire data and mobilize data from Africa onto the Neotoma Paleoecology Database. This open-science initiative will...

This $162,477 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (CFDA 47.075) program supports research into the long-term relationships between human fire management practices and environmental change in high-elevation ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest. The key objectives are to: conduct archaeological surveys of subalpine ecosystems, interpret early Holocene subsistence patterns and changes in cultural burning practices, and investigate...

This is a Cooperative Agreement award from the U.S. Geological Survey's National and Regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers (CFDA 15.820) program. The $305,077 award to the University of Washington, with a subcontract to Portland State University, will fund a 2-year project titled "Assessing and Projecting Post-Fire Transitions and Reburn Dynamics in the Western Cascades." The project aims to develop new applied science for anticipating and understanding the capacity of forests in...

This $429,216 Cooperative Agreement awarded by the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management under the Joint Fire Science Program (CFDA 15.232) aims to investigate how previous managed wildfires influenced the extent, severity, and management tactics used on recent uncontrolled wildfires in the southern Sierra Nevada. The project has six key objectives: (1) identify the environmental factors that led to recent wildfires either burning over or stopping at the boundaries of...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) Project Grant award of $176,388 to Oregon State University (OSU) aims to quantify the production of pyrogenic carbon (charcoal) during wildfires in the temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest region and examine how this altered carbon affects soil carbon cycling during ecosystem regeneration. The study will leverage a unique dataset on the 2023 Lookout Fire in the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest to (i)...

This $390,000 Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) aims to improve the understanding and modeling of fire spread in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), where forests and natural areas meet cities and towns. The key objectives are to: Develop a fundamental physical understanding of how fire interacts with individual structures and materials in urban environments at the local scale. Investigate how these localized interactions influence...

This $636,200 Cooperative Agreement award from the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management, through the Joint Fire Science Program (CFDA 15.232), will support research to address knowledge gaps about the effective duration and impacts of fuel reduction treatments (mechanical thinning, prescribed fire) in mixed-conifer forests across the interior Pacific Northwest. The project will leverage existing data from the Fire and Fire Surrogates study that was burned in subsequent...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Geosciences Program (CFDA 47.050) aims to gain predictive understanding of the physical processes driving rapid wildfire spread and associated smoke transport. The $108,519 award to the University of Oklahoma will support research to analyze non-modal instability and large-scale turbulent flows in fire-generated smoke plumes. This work will help guide firefighters to more safely and effectively suppress wildfires by improving...