Field Trips + Workshops
Workshops
The workshops will be held on Monday, October 31st. The purpose of the workshops is to provide a forum for researchers and practitioners in wildland fire to discuss and exchange interests on defined topics. We view these workshops as an opportunity for information transfer. Register for the workshops when you register for the conference. The fee to participate is $10/workshop.
Monday, October 31
10:00 am – 12:00 pm
Burn-P3+: A new multi-model burn probability simulator based on Burn-P3
Instructors:
- Chris Stockdale, Wildfire Research and Extension Scientist, Natural Resources Canada
- Shreeram Senthivasan, Systems Ecologist, Apex RMS
- Leonardo Frid, Systems Ecologist, Apex RMS
Brett Moore, Wildfire Application Developer, Natural Resources Canada
Burn-P3+ is a new software tool for burn probability modeling at the landscape scale. Its design is based on the original Burn-P3 model but includes several enhancements to overcome limitations inherent in that version. Burn-P3+ is a cross platform tool that enables end users to develop and run landscape-scale burn probability models while taking advantage of multiple fire growth models including Prometheus and Cell2Fire. The new Burn-P3+ is built as an open-source package for the SyncroSim software framework for geospatial simulation modeling. SyncroSim can be run in both Windows and Linux via the command line, R and Python packages and via a graphical user interface in Windows. Models can be delivered to decision makers via desktop and browser-based interfaces. The new modular design of Burn-P3+ will also allow users to independently develop and publish add-on scripts, written in languages such as R, Python and C#, that extend the functionality of the tool; for example, these add-ons could include support for additional fire growth models or custom pre- and post-processing scripts. This workshop will introduce participants to basic concepts of burn probability modeling using Burn-P3+ and showcase the use of the software through a live demonstration. Workshop instructors will discuss differences with the original version of the Burn-P3 model. Workshop participants will be provided with information they need to download the software and access additional instructional materials to get started.
Objectives:
- Review basic concepts of burn probability modeling
- Provide a live demonstration of the Burn-P3+ software using a case study landscape
- Discuss and demonstrate differences with the old version of Burn-P3
- Provide participants with the information they need to get started using the software.
Instructor bios:
Chris Stockdale is a Wildfire Research and Extension Scientist for the Canadian Forest Service at the Northern Forestry Centre in Edmonton Alberta. He received a BSc (Honours) in Biology from the University of Victoria in 1998, a MSc in Forest Ecology from Oregon State University in2001, and his PhD in Forest Biology and Management from the University of Alberta in 2016. His research has covered stand dynamics following mountain pine beetle attack, interactions between mountain pine beetle and fire, historical fire regimes, ecological change, and his current research focuses primarily on wildfire risk modelling.
Shreeram is a systems ecologist and research software developer. He holds an M.Sc. in Zoology (University of British Columbia) and a B.Sc. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (University of Toronto). Shreeram has a strong interest in developing methods and tools for biological research, and for communicating applied mathematics concepts to biologists. Through his studies and work experience he has developed skills in data analysis, data visualization and statistical modeling, including programming fluency in both Python and R.
Leonardo is a systems ecologist with over 20 years of consulting experience. He holds an M.Sc. in Zoology and a B.Sc. in Conservation Biology, both from the University of British Columbia. Leonardo’s work focuses on landscape simulation modeling, wildland fire risk and fuels management, invasive plant management, species at risk, and land use/land cover change. Leonardo has led numerous workshops, covering topics ranging from technical and scientific issues to strategic planning, and regularly delivers training courses in the use of landscape simulation modeling tools for decision support.
Monday, October 31
1:00 – 4:00 pm
Showcase geospatial data utilizing ArcGIS
Instructors:
- Chris (Fern) Ferner, Wildland Fire GIS Specialist, Esri
- Anthony Schultz, Director of Wildland Fire Solutions, Esri
Learn how to turn your organizations data into useful web maps and applications. ArcGIS applications allow agencies to quickly transform their geospatial content and provide their audiences an intuitive experience to interact with complex information. Within minutes, attendees will be able to select an application template, choose configuration options, and share a product that addresses your audience’s needs and tells your organization’s story. Confidently use ArcGIS knowing that it’s built to support accessibility across audiences and devices.
During this interactive workshop, attendees will:
- View examples of a variety of existing applications.
- Author a web map using data from ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World
- Create an application utilizing a web map
- Gain exposure to a variety of ArcGIS applications
Monday, October 31
1:00 – 5:00 pm
FULL – Wildfire Predictive Services: Applied Science for Operational Fire Support
Instructors:
- Sam LaCarte – Fire Science Analyst – Canadian Forest Service
- Brett Moore – Wildfire Applications Developer – Canadian Forest Service
- Justin Beckers – Fire Analyst – Canadian Forest Service
This workshop is focused on the evolving state of wildfire predictive services in Canada to foster enhanced collaboration and knowledge sharing among the fire management and fire research communities. We intend to provide an overview of the current and future tools that are in development and to collaborate with fire practitioners to better understand their needs and desires around predictive services in Canada for fire management. Agencies across Canada are starting to develop and implement their own fire predictive services groups; this workshop intends to bring about a national dialogue on how these products and services can best improve and support fire management across Canada.
The goal of this workshop is to begin a national dialogue around wildfire predictive services and to improve engagement and collaboration between fire management and fire research communities in this area. Specifically, we aim to provide a session focused on: What predictive services means to fire management? What predictive services exist, how can we improve these? What are the needs to support and integrate predictive services?
Instructor Bios:
Brett Moore is a fire applications developer working closely with current and upcoming fire modelling tools nationally. Brett is a Fire Behaviour Analyst with extensive experience in fire support and management through his time with Alberta Wildfire.
Justin Beckers is a scientist specializing in data and application development and fire support services for the CWFIS. Justin is a key member working on the Canadian Wildland Fire Information Framework to improve data sharing, tool development, and integration among the Canadian fire management community.
Sam LaCarte is a fire analyst, focused on high-resolution fuel mapping and fire support services. Sam is a key member working on the CWFIS fire predictive services during the fire season with a background in fire management out of the Ontario fire program.
Monday, October 31
1:00 – 5:00
In-depth Introduction to QUIC-Fire
Instructors:
- Alexander Josephson, Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Daniel Thompson, Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Rodman Linn, Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Sara Brambilla, Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Russell Parsons, Missoula Fire Lab
- Ilkay Altintas, University of California San Diego
- Ginny Marshall, Natural Resources Canada
- David Robinson, Los Alamos National Laboratory
This workshop will provide an in-depth and interactive look at an emerging software technology, QUIC-Fire, designed to capture high-fidelity, physics-driven, fire behavior and spread in a computationally economical domain. In other words, QUIC-Fire is supposed to accurately predict complex fire behavior on your standard laptop computer in real time. This workshop will be broken into roughly three parts:
- An introduction into what QUIC-fire is, what it is not (yet!), how it works, and where it is going.
- An introduction into some evolving extensions and capabilities around QUIC-Fire. Including some discussions about FastFuels, an online fuel mapping software, as well as BurnPro3D, an online fire forecasting tool utilizing ensemble simulations of QUIC-Fire to forecast fire behavior and progression.
- An interactive case-study will be developed by workshop participants based around experimental burns carried out at Pelican Mountain, Alberta. In this case-study, we will be exercising QUIC-Fire to alter and explore interactions between the fuel, weather, or ignition conditions and burn results as determined by committee what we should explore and showcase with QUIC-Fire ensemble simulations.
A follow-up presentation will be given later in the conference to show-case results from Part 3’s case-study. In all phases of this workshop, participants are encouraged to actively engage with questions, clarifications, and/or suggestions to open a dialog and explore how QUIC-Fire and related tools can be tailored to Canadian Fire research.
Instructor Bios:
Multiple presenters will be engaged throughout this workshop and will feature:
- Rod Linn – Los Alamos National Laboratory. Rod has been around the fire community for a while as the principal investigator for all things HIGRAD/FIRETEC, a physics-based coupled atmosphere-fire CFD code. As one of its primary inventors, Rod now has moved a lot of his work and efforts to the development and deployment of QUIC-Fire.
- Daniel Thompson – Natural Resources Canada. Dan is well known in the Canadian Fire community for his work on boreal wildfire spread and impacts using an environmental physics framework. Over the last few years, Dan has enabled the ongoing collaborations between Los Alamos and the Canadian Forest Service introducing first HIGRAD/FIRETEC, and now QUIC-Fire to broader Canadian Fire community.
- Sara Brambilla – Los Alamos National Laboratory. Sara is the primary developer and gate-keeper for all things QUIC-Fire. All things go through, and are improved by, her with capabilities and needs constantly being balanced.
- Russell Parsons – Missoula Fire Lab. Russ is a Research Ecologist with the Fire, Fuels and Smoke research program and serves as the principle investigator developing the FastFuels program and capability.
- Ilkay Altintas — University of California San Diego. Ilkay is the Chief Data Science Officer of the San Diego Supercomputer Center. She is the Founding Director of the WIFIRE Lab, a program focused on artificial intelligence methods for an all-hazards knowledge cyberinfrastructure, becoming a management layer from the data collection to modeling efforts, and has achieved significant success in helping to manage wildfires.
- Ginny Marshall – Natural Resources Canada. Ginny has been working directly with Los Alamos the last few years applying HIGRAD/FIRETEC to a variety of local fire research interests and problems.
- David Robinson – Los Alamos National Laboratory. David is a postdoc researcher with focus and expertise on fire-wind-topography modeling and has helped to develop much of the finer atmospheric-fire interactions in QUIC-Fire on complex topography.
- Alex Josephson – Los Alamos National Laboratory. Alex does smoke.
Monday, October 31
1:00 – 5:00
Full – Modelling conifer fuel treatments with the Canadian Conifer Pyrometrics System
Instructor:
- Daniel Perrakis, Fire Research Scientist
This workshop provides a background and training on using a relatively new fire behaviour modelling system (Conifer Pyrometrics) for planning forest fuel treatments to reduce the probability of crown fire in conifer stands. Participants will learn about the research behind the CP system, including pre-existing similar models (FBP System, CFIS) and the new analysis of experimental burns that underpins the CP model. Participants will learn techniques for estimating critical fire weather thresholds and mesuring or estimating forest structure for use in the CP model. Examples will be provided of how forest structure can be altered to change the probability of crown fire in western Canadian landscapes.
Objectives:
Provide an overview and examples to users with some formal fire behaviour training on how to use the Conifer Pyrometrics model for planning successful fuel treatments in Canadian conifer forests.
Instructor Bio: Dan Perrakis is a Fire Research Scientist with the Canadian Forest Service at the Pacific Forestry Centre in Victoria, BC. He has M.Sc and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Washington in Forest Ecology and has previously worked as the provincial Fire Science Officer for the BC Wildfire Service and as the western region Fire Ecologist for Parks Canada. He is a member of the CFS Fire Danger Group and is the principal investigator on the Conifer Pyrometrics modelling system project.
Field Trip - We have reached capacity for the field trip.
Friday, November 4
9:00 – 3:00 pm
There is no cost to attend the field trip.
Space is limted to 80 people.
Bison, Blueberries, and Burning: Cultural fire in Treaty 6 territory
Cultural burning has been an important cultural practice in Treaty 6 territory, conducted by multiple Nations to steward the landscape since time immemorial. This field trip will give participants the chance to learn from cultural fire knowledge holders on the land. Participants will be transported from the Westin to Elk Island National Park (approximately 40 minutes), where we will visit multiple locations over a three-hour period, learning about the importance of Indigenous fire stewardship from cultural fire practitioners, Elders, and Parks Canada staff. We will also provide participants with free time to explore Elk Island National Park.
During this field trip, participants will have the opportunity to learn about and discuss multiple issues related to Indigenous fire stewardship, including: 1) what it is and why it is important, 2) opportunities and challenges, and 3) best practices.
Register for the workshops & field trip when you register for the conference.
Just living is never enough…one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower
Hans Christian Andersen