FRAP Grantee Webinar - Hannah Redford

Thursday, March 19 at 3pm PT/6pm ET

Title: Impact of fire weather and fuel structure on housing loss in the 2020 Creek Fire

Abstract: The 2020 Creek Fire burned ~380,000 acres in California's Sierra Nevada, destroying over 850 of 3,002 structures. Using pre-fire lidar data, we examined how near-structure fuel configurations influenced housing loss/survival across three fire stages. During extreme fire weather, local fuel configurations had minimal impact on structure survival but significantly influenced outcomes during moderate conditions. Vegetation 1-2 m tall at 10-30 meters from the home was most correlated with structure loss/survival. Our findings also suggest that the impact of vegetation depends on fire behavior and changes across various fire stages.

The Forest Health Research Program is part of California Climate Investments, a statewide initiative that puts billions of Cap-and-Invest dollars to work reducing greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening the economy, and improving public health and the environment — particularly in disadvantaged communities.

Speaker: Hannah Redford

Hannah is a PhD candidate in the School of Environment and Forest Sciences at the University of Washington. Her research leverages lidar technology to characterize subcanopy fuels and vegetation structure, examining fire impacts across multiple scales from individual homes in wildland-urban interface communities to landscape-level vegetation patterns in Sierra Nevada mixed-conifer forests. By combining remote sensing methods, ecology, and spatial modeling, she informs essential management strategies.