6th International Fire Behavior and FUels conference

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. ​​

The goal of the meetings was to exchange research ideas for the FIRETEC model and come up with new ways to implement them. ​The problem was, I have never actually used FIRETEC before. FIRETEC is a very complex physics-based code that is used to model how fuels, atmosphere and topography can interact and affect fire behavior.  After a lot of catch up and many questions, I hope that my work with LiDAR can ultimately be used as a fuel input for some of the FIRETEC projects.​

After spending a couple days at LANL we all left for Albuquerque for the Fire Behavior and Fuels Conference. On the way to Albuquerque we drove through the aftermath of the Las Conchas Fire – a 2011 wildfire that threatened to burn down the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the town of Los Alamos itself! It was interesting to compare vegetation structure from this semi-arid landscape to the dense boreal spruce stands I am used to working in.
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I started off the conference by taking a “Photoload Sampling Technique” workshop hosted by Robert Keane. The workshop focused on introducing some new methods to estimate surface fuel loads. We practiced estimating ground fuel loads by comparing the photoload guide to our own visual interpretations. By the end of the session we were getting surprisingly good at it! 

One of the first Keynote speakers for the conference was none other than our own Jen Beverly! Jen did a great presentation on fuel management designs in the boreal forest. She paved the way for other great presentations that focused on the boreal spruce fuel type such as Dan Thompson’s talk on the impact of fuel treatments on fire behavior, Steve Hvengarrd’s talk on mulched fuels in the boreal forest, and Robert Ziel’s talk (another Keynote speaker) on Alaska’s fire environment. With only two days left in New Mexico, it was finally my time to present my own results on using LiDAR to predict forest fuel characteristics in the boreal forest.  Despite being extremely nervous for my presentation, it went alright! And it gave me the opportunity to discuss my research and possible paths it could take me with numerous other scientists and fire behavior specialists. I am so happy that I got the opportunity to attend this conference and talks at LANL. It is inspiring how much wildfire research is going on throughout the world and it is so exciting that I can be a part of even a sliver of it!

For the last day in New Mexico I found some time to go exploring just outside Albuquerque with Dan Thompson (Canadian Forest Service) and Chad Gardeski (FPInnovations).  Spending some time hiking in New Mexico’s raw and rugid landscape allowed me to see why it is often called the “Land of Enchantment”. It also let me reflect on how much I had learned while I was there and how excited I was to return home and apply that knowledge to my own studies. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity I had to go to New Mexico and am thankful to everyone who helped get me there!