This $297,813 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Integrative Activities (CFDA 47.083) program supports a collaborative research effort led by Boise State University to enhance the predictive understanding of wildfire ignitions in the Western United States. The project aims to:
Advance the scientific understanding of climate, weather, land cover/use, topography, social, and management attributes associated with different wildfire ignition causes across the Western US states. This will involve data analytics approaches to identify similarities, differences, and stationarity of ignition attributes.
Investigate the changing characteristics of social and environmental processes that shape the landscape of wildfire occurrence, and develop advanced machine-learning models to predict future potential wildfire ignition pathways in response to climate change and population growth.
The project outcomes are expected to inform targeted and effective wildfire prevention strategies and guide sustainable community growth pathways that enable human coexistence with wildfires. The award period is from December 1, 2024 to November 30, 2026. No sub-awards are planned under this grant.