by Air Forbes

​Last month, a group of Wildfire Analytics team members and alumni attended the Wildland Fire Canada Conference in Fredericton, New Brunswick. It was a great opportunity to share our projects with posters, oral presentations, a workshop, and countless conversations with conference attendees. 

I had a wonderful time sharing my most recent project in a full day workshop with Jen Beverly called “Wildfire exposure and directional vulnerability assessments: methods and applications”. 

by Jared Randall

My road to the fireline began last year when I contacted Dr. Beverly about my interest in wildland fire science and the possibility of student research opportunities. About a year later, I was in northern British Columbia with my pulaski in hand, working as a wildland firefighter with Northern Fire WoRx. The experience wasn’t just an adventure with great memories, it also taught me more about fire behaviour and fire response than I could have imagined. On the job, I learned through direct observation and deduction and also from conversations with my incredibly knowledgeable crew. 
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by Sonja Leverkus

As we waited impatiently for the 2020 Fire Season to start in northern BC, our crew here at Northern Fire WoRx trained and geared up with plenty of time in advance of potential deployments.  Operating in a COVID-19 environment in a way that keeps ourselves, our clients, our families, and all those we work with safe, posed a huge amount of pressure, stress, time, and dedication throughout the spring until present.

As the owner of Shifting Mosaics Consulting and Northern Fire WoRx Corp. I take a strong leadership role in maintaining our health and safety to the highest standards.

by Jen Beverly
I recently had the great fortune to serve as Program Chair for Canada’s national fire conference Wildland Fire Canada 2019. The conference was held in Ottawa, Ontario, November 19-21, 2019, following several years of planning. As Program Chair, my role included assembling a Program Committee. I wanted a committee that could represent the diverse components of Canada’s wildland fire science and management community. I also wanted to use my role as program chair to promote gender diversity at the conference. 

By Kiera Smith​
My first paper is published (Brown et al., 2019)! For me, this paper represents not just my first paper but my first steps into wildfire science. It all started in the fall of 2013, when I was an undergraduate student in the co-op program at the University of Victoria. I remember being beyond excited when I saw the job posting for “paleo-fire laboratory technician”. When I received the phone call offering me the position, I was over the moon. ​

By Andrew Stack
This summer, I had the privilege of working with FPInnovations as a wildfire science intern. The Fire Science division is a small team of dedicated people working on a huge array of applied wildfire science projects. These projects cover important, topical issues such as firefighter survival and safety, advanced fire behaviour prediction, fireline gear and equipment testing, community protection techniques, wildfire tactics, and building and infrastructure upgrades. 

By Hilary Cameron
While Edmonton was experiencing cold temperatures, blizzards and snowfall warnings, I had the opportunity to spend 10 days in New Mexico to collaborate with other fire researchers and attend the 6th International Fire Behavior and Fuels Conference organized by the International Association of Wildland Fire. The first half of the trip was spent at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). After going through their intense security system, I finally got to sit down with Dan Thompson and Ginny Marshall (Canadian Forest Service, Edmonton) and LANL researchers Rod Linn, Alexandra Jonko, and Alexander Josephson. ​​

By Jen Beverly
May 2019 was a very active spring fire season for the province of Alberta and we were fortunate to observe fire suppression and response operations first-hand in the Peace River Forest Area. I traveled to the area with Ilbin Lee from the Alberta School of Business. Ilbin and I are collaborating on a new research project to explore dispatch decisions and how they affect fire management objectives. We were also joined by Andrew Stack, one of my graduate students, who is working with initial attack crews in the area to pilot test rapid fuel assessment techniques.