Using Alaska wildfires in their recent study, researchers at the University of California Irvine say they have a new way of predicting wildfire growth, right at the time the fire ignites.
The researchers developed an algorithm through what’s called machine learning that looks at information like climate and weather data to issue a prediction on how big a particular fire will grow. And knowing that, they say, could help fire managers figure out where to focus firefighting efforts.
Shane Coffield is a graduate student in the Earth System Science program at UC Irvine and lead author of the research paper. He spoke with Alaska Public Media’s Casey Grove.
Read more about Alaska’s 2019 wildfire season.
Casey Grove is host of Alaska News Nightly, a general assignment reporter and an editor at Alaska Public Media. Reach him at cgrove@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Casey here.
