Project Grant 2425932

This $889,209 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Geosciences Program (CFDA 47.050) will fund a collaborative effort between researchers at the University of California Irvine and the Pyregence consortium to advance wildfire science, prediction, and management using machine learning. The key objectives are to: 1) develop a large public dataset of fire-related environmental observations to support reproducible ML research on wildfire spread modeling, 2) create innovative spatiotemporal ML models to predict wildfire spread and compare them to physics-based models, and 3) develop network-based frameworks to optimize the placement of fuel treatments and fire breaks. As part of this effort, the project will include a $173,871 sub-award to Spatial Informatics Group LLC to contribute expertise in geospatial analysis, spatial modeling, and wildfire mitigation planning. This award aims to enhance understanding, prediction, and management of wildfires by leveraging advanced computational techniques and fostering collaboration between researchers and fire managers.