Portland State University and the University of British Columbia

2026-2027 Cascadia Wildfire and urban smoke webinar series

The seventh year of the Cascadia Wildfire and Urban Smoke webinar series will include a diverse set of speakers and panels discussing critical research and policy issues related to the growing threat of wildfire. We continue to feature investigators funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s Wildfire Resilience Initiative.

All sessions are held Wednesdays at 1pm Pacific Time on Zoom. Video recordings of previous years’ webinars are available at: https://research.ubc.ca/cascadia-wildfire-urban-smoke

May 19, 2027: How Heatwaves Enable Wildfire Activity and Accelerate Burned Area Across the West

Presenter: Dmitri Kalashnikov, UC Merced

An analysis of data spanning 2001 to 2024 demonstrates that nearly half of the total burned area in the western United States occurs during or immediately after heatwaves, highlighting how extreme temperature anomalies amplify daily forest fire growth and co-occur with increased lightning ignitions.