This video was streamed live and recorded on Thursday, September 30, 2021
Fire has always been part of the Western landscape, but the fire season is getting longer and more severe every year. So far this year, California has seen four of the largest wildfires in its history and the Dixie Fire, the second-largest in state history, is still burning after two months. Fire is part of our future. What can we do to protect homes, neighborhoods and communities and make them more resilient to fire hazards? Joining us to discuss this are two experts:
- Michele Barbato is a professor of civil and environmental engineering and co-director of the Climate Adaptation Research Center at UC Davis. He studies natural hazards to buildings and other structures including fires, earthquakes, hurricanes and tornadoes, and how structures can be designed to be more resilient to such hazards.
- Jim Thorne is a research scientist with the Department of Environmental Science and Policy. He is a landscape ecologist with interests in regional planning, conservation and climate change adaptation and mitigation. He develops spatial frameworks for integration of multiple risk and resource maps to seek the most effective locations for land management solutions. He has studied how climate change is impacting California’s native vegetation, increasing the risk of wildfires, and how planning decisions can reduce or mitigate the risk from wildfires. As a reminder, we are taking your questions live. Leave them in the comment section and the team will text them to me and I will work in as many as we can.