Please find my full paper here.
I built a model simulating wildfire spread through the old-growth woodlands west of Fort Collins, Colorado where the High Park (2012) and Cameron Peak (2020) fires devastated the region. Residents sense that another major fire is inevitable.
Using vegetation and weather data, the model accurately reproduces how real fires behave: the vast majority of fires stay small, but a rare few escalate into landscape-scale disasters that account for most of the destruction, with direct implications for fire management and homeowners.
The results from my model show that, given the current vegetation around Fort Collins, a fire larger than any before, is still possible. Thus, the importance of fire mitigation techniques.
The image shows slash burn piles - a fire mitigation technique - in these woodlands, courtesy of Dr. Glen Liston, whose local fire mitigation work and voluntary work as a fireman helped inform this project.
