Predicting Wildfires

Reported September 2007

Madison, Wisc. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- They burn, strip away and destroy everything in their path. More than 140,000 wildfires occur each year in this country, costing us billions. And the problem is getting worse. Now, scientists are figuring out where wildfires will happen before they happen.

Madison, Wisc. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- They burn, strip away and destroy everything in their path. More than 140,000 wildfires occur each year in this country, costing us billions. And the problem is getting worse. Now, scientists are figuring out where wildfires will happen before they happen.

"We were so lucky to get out. Another 30 seconds and we probably would not have been able to get out," Roth says.

She lives in a wildfire's paradise -- dry vegetation and medium density housing where communities meet the country. Scientists call it the "Wildland-Urban-Interface."

"Things are changing now, and so the fire season's becoming longer, fires are becoming more frequent. They're becoming larger," Alexandra Syphard, PhD, fire ecologist at the University of Wisconsin, says.

That's why Syphard is dedicating her life to figuring out where they'll happen before they happen. The recipe for disaster? Dry, flammable vegetation, a mountainous region and the Wildland-Urban-Interface. It's become a desirable place to live because people are removed from the cities.

"In California as a whole, 95 percent of the fires are caused by humans," Syphard says.

It can be just throwing out a cigarette, or...

"Even a car backfiring can produce a fire in this really dry vegetation," Syphard says.

Syphard plugs in these human factors to show where wildfires will strike and spread.

"These really high hazard areas then would be good places to focus treatments," Syphard explains.

She says the best tactic is to cut down on urban sprawl, because once fires start, they're almost impossible to stop. It's the human factors that make fires start and the environmental factors that make them spread. And important to remember, although southern California is one of the biggest danger zones, fires can happen anywhere.

The American Geophysical Union contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Dr. Alexandra D. Syphard
University of Wisconsin, Madison
(608) 265-9219
asyphard@yahoo.com

American Geophysical Union
Washington, DC 20009-1277
(800) 966-2481
http://www.agu.org

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