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Center Overview
The Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center (WIRC) at San José State University brings together an interdisciplinary team of academic and industry leaders to address the wildfire problem faced by many regions around the nation and the world. WIRC’s mission is to conduct high-impact wildfire research to provide new predictive tools and informed strategies to communities and industry stakeholders, including first responders, those interested in risk analysis, and policymakers in communities, companies, and utilities affected by wildfire. WIRC’s integrated approach to solving the wildfire problem will lead to interdisciplinary solutions that span the physical, social, and economic sciences. The results: cutting-edge knowledge, improved prediction tools, and community resilience strategies. WIRC also will develop new programs to train the STEM workforce to become fire managers, city planners, fire analysts, and fire meteorologists.
Center Personnel
Craig B Clements
Center Director
+1 408 924 1677
craig.clements@sjsu.edu
Dr. Amanda Stasiewicz
Co-Director
+1 408 924 5450
amanda.stasiewicz@sjsu.edu
Research Focus
WIRC will contribute to the following areas of wildfire science:
- Fire weather and fire-atmosphere modeling and forecasting, which will be used to develop new fire danger metrics for public and private industry stakeholders.
- Fire behavior monitoring and modeling for improved operational prediction and forecasting tools.
- Wildfire-related tools and strategies, which examine the nexus of social and natural contexts of wildfire management and adaptation.
- Climate change and wildfire risk, for developing detailed spatial and temporal information about the climatic influence on wildfires in the past and the future to better prepare communities and industry for wildfires.
- Fire ecology assessments, for improving home hardening and informing stakeholders and communities how to better prepare for wildfires of the future.
Awards
In the United States, the adjusted impacts of wildfires exceeded $100 B over the past 22 years. A community resilient to wildland fires can prepare for anticipated scenarios, take mitigating actions, adapt to changing conditions, minimize losses during the response to an event, and rapidly recover. Scientists with San José State University Wildfire Interdisciplinary Center (WIRC), an Industry University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC), are working together with Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) researchers to holistically investigate wildfires. Broader impacts include improved response to wildfires, especially in the areas of decision making; determining risk; ensuring reliable electrical grid operations and informing decisions on grid cutoff; minimizing loss of life and property; and providing more effective warnings and prognostication to populations living in areas susceptible to wildfire. The Center is training the STEM workforce to become fire managers, city planners, fire analysts, and fire meteorologists. The collaboration will increase the numbers of students trained in wildfire research, diversify the types of training students receive, and increase student’s potential for internships from a broader group of companies. Both institutions will conduct active outreach using their campus programs to increase the diversity of trained students. Finally, the partnership extends the reach of WIRC to the east coast where fire frequency and extreme fires are also increasing. Collectively, the Center is conducting high-impact wildfire research to provide new predictive tools and strategies to communities and industry stakeholders, including first responders, risk analysts, policymakers, companies, and utilities.
By partnering with WPI, a new IUCRC Partner Site to WIRC, the collective team will address several key topics synergistic with the Center’s ongoing wildfire prediction, preparation, and prevention efforts. For example, WPI adds critical research depth to address human safety and community resilience to wildfire, including fire safety at the wildland-urban interface; small-scale fire behavior; fire impact at the fire-front level; fire protection systems, and firefighter safety. Improvements in understanding of fire spread through different layers of vegetation, the characterization of firebrands produced by a fire-burning vegetation or structure, the generation of reliable fire behavior data used to train AI models, and the study of the fundamental fire-front level processes to drive extreme fire behavior are critically needed to improve our ability to understand and model wildfire. Because of its emphasis on fire protection, WPI will study new fire detection methods, robotics solutions to enhance first responders’ safety, and fire suppression systems for wildfires. Its state-of-the-art Fire Protection Lab provides equipment to conduct experiments, enabling researchers to extract fundamental measurements of fire ignition and conflagration.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. Read More >
By partnering with WPI, a new IUCRC Partner Site to WIRC, the collective team will address several key topics synergistic with the Center’s ongoing wildfire prediction, preparation, and prevention efforts. For example, WPI adds critical research depth to address human safety and community resilience to wildfire, including fire safety at the wildland-urban interface; small-scale fire behavior; fire impact at the fire-front level; fire protection systems, and firefighter safety. Improvements in understanding of fire spread through different layers of vegetation, the characterization of firebrands produced by a fire-burning vegetation or structure, the generation of reliable fire behavior data used to train AI models, and the study of the fundamental fire-front level processes to drive extreme fire behavior are critically needed to improve our ability to understand and model wildfire. Because of its emphasis on fire protection, WPI will study new fire detection methods, robotics solutions to enhance first responders’ safety, and fire suppression systems for wildfires. Its state-of-the-art Fire Protection Lab provides equipment to conduct experiments, enabling researchers to extract fundamental measurements of fire ignition and conflagration.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. Read More >
This Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) on Wildfires, located at San Jose State University, provides tools, observational and predictive, and research results for use by first responders, those interested in risk analysis, and policy makers for communities and companies/utilities impacted by, and concerned about, wildfires. Center research thrusts include fire weather and atmospheric modeling and forecasting; fire behavior monitoring and modeling; wildfire management and policy, and climate change and wildfire risk. IUCRCs are innovative collaborations between universities and industry where funding from the National Science Foundation is used to fund Center administrative costs and industry provides financial support via membership fees, and other funding, to support Center research projects and student/postdoc salaries. Industry members contributing to the Center form its industrial advisory board that helps select research projects, proposed by Center faculty, that address the members’ collective research needs. Thus, research in an IUCRC is pre-competitive and fundamental with topics directed by its industrial advisory board to remove obstacles that are preventing their sector of the economy from moving forward. The San Jose State University IUCRC on wildfires will be working with industry, utilities, and government agencies to increase our knowledge of wildfires and their spread and explore their social and economic implications. It will also examine means of generating better evacuation compliance from impacted populations. The Center will develop tools and models resulting in better and more accurate simulations of wildfire initiation and simulation. The broader impacts of this Center are strong and multifaceted with significant societal and economic relevance because wildfires in the western US and around the world are a serious problem that cause loss of life, loss of property, and serious environmental and ecosystem damage that lasts for decades. The present exacerbation in global warming will increase wildfire occurrence, so research products produced by this Center will help industry, communities and countries impacted by wildfires. Products to be generated include improved understanding of file and firebrand transport, modeling tools to help utilities better manage their assets in times of high fire danger, provision of critical information to first responders during the fire season, and prediction of fire front paths and fire line rates of advance. Other impacts include education and workforce training efforts and the involvement of groups underrepresented in the sciences and engineering. Underserved communities, impacted by wildfires, will be targeted for wildfire education and informational efforts as these populations tend to be the most negatively impacted by wildfires. Interest in the Center by organizations in foreign countries impacted by wildfires, like Australia and Portugal, will extend the results of this Center’s work globally.
The Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center (WIRC) is an Industry-University Cooperative Research Center whose purpose is to conduct high-impact wildfire research to provide tools and informed policies to communities and industry stakeholders around the world. Its mission is to develop new prediction and observational systems to better understand extreme fire behavior in a changing climate. The Center will also develop an integrated approach to solving the nation’s wildfire problem by providing cross-disciplinary solutions that span the physical, social, and economic scientific fields. The Center will contribute to the following wildfire sciences: fire weather and coupled fire-atmosphere modeling and forecasting which will involve the development of new fire danger metrics for industry stakeholders; fire behavior monitoring and modeling for which new theories, observations, and fire and fire brand spread models for will be developed for forecast systems; wildfire management and policy which examines the nexus of the social and natural contexts of wildfire management and adaptation across wildfire prone landscapes; and climate change and wildfire risk. For these research thrusts, high-resolution reanalysis and in-situ data will be used to determine historical trends and models will be used to quantify the influence of these determinants on fire behavior.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. Read More >
The Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center (WIRC) is an Industry-University Cooperative Research Center whose purpose is to conduct high-impact wildfire research to provide tools and informed policies to communities and industry stakeholders around the world. Its mission is to develop new prediction and observational systems to better understand extreme fire behavior in a changing climate. The Center will also develop an integrated approach to solving the nation’s wildfire problem by providing cross-disciplinary solutions that span the physical, social, and economic scientific fields. The Center will contribute to the following wildfire sciences: fire weather and coupled fire-atmosphere modeling and forecasting which will involve the development of new fire danger metrics for industry stakeholders; fire behavior monitoring and modeling for which new theories, observations, and fire and fire brand spread models for will be developed for forecast systems; wildfire management and policy which examines the nexus of the social and natural contexts of wildfire management and adaptation across wildfire prone landscapes; and climate change and wildfire risk. For these research thrusts, high-resolution reanalysis and in-situ data will be used to determine historical trends and models will be used to quantify the influence of these determinants on fire behavior.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. Read More >
Member Organizations
IUCRC affiliated member organizations are displayed as submitted by the Center. Non-federal organizations are not selected, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the U.S. National Science Foundation.The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the Center author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation.