The Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory has been hosting an annual seminar series since 1998. Hour-long seminars are presented by Fire Lab employees and other researchers from throughout the world. Seminars cover current research and management about the natural world from a broad range of disciplines, but most seminars usually have a wildland fire theme. The Fire Lab Seminar Series provides a platform for researchers and managers to present their work in an environment that encourages critical thought, the free exchange of ideas, and knowledge discovery. For more information, visit the Fire Lab Seminar Series page.
Jan 12 2023, 11am - 12pm
In 2022, the Forest Service released a report titled “Confronting the Wildfire Crisis: A Strategy for Protecting Communities and Improving Resilience in America’s Forests”. The report laid the foundation for how the Forest Service intends to…
Jan 19 2023, 11am - 12pm
In 2022, the US Forest Service launched an ambitious 10-year strategy to address the escalating wildfire danger in the USA. “Confronting the Wildfire Crisis: A Strategy for Protecting Communities and Improving Resilience in America’s Forests”…
Jan 26 2023, 11am - 12pm
Wildfire analytics now used in the wildfire crisis strategy had beginnings in fire simulation research in the early 1990s. Data and models developed during this period enabled spatial analyses of fire growth and behavior and allowed examination of…
Feb 16 2023, 11am - 12pm
A critical challenge to implementing the Wildfire Crisis Strategy (WCS) -- and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation (BIL) funding that supports it -- is the persistent gap between science and practice. Among scientists the gap is typically…
Feb 23 2023, 11am - 12pm
Big data and the knowledge we glean from it are fundamentally changing the way in which resource management decisions are being made. While the use of remotely sensed data, spatial modeling, and newer processing techniques are helping to provide…
Mar 9 2023, 11am - 12pm
Much of the current dialogue around mitigating wildfire risk to people and property in the United States focuses on vegetation treatments to reduce fuel loads on public lands. There is good reason for that – responsible management of lands within…
Mar 16 2023, 11am - 12pm
This seminar builds of the March 9, 2023 “Community-focused programs, datasets, and planning resources for wildfire risk mitigation” seminar (presenters: Greg Dillon, Eva Karau, Kelly Pohl) by focusing on how to support creation of fire-resilient…
Mar 23 2023, 11am - 12pm
This talk will explore themes of slack and scarcity and how they relate to efficiency and risk in wildfire. The presenter will discuss slack and scarcity in the context of incident response and then scale up to the interagency system that…
Mar 30 2023, 11am - 12pm
The National Indian Forest Resource Management Act requires decadal assessments of the status of tribal forests and forest management in the United States. A team of independent experts, otherwise known as the Indian Forest Management Assessment…
Apr 20 2023, 11am - 12pm
In subalpine forests of the Northern Rockies, short-interval high-severity wildland fires are symptomatic of emerging changes in fire regimes. Evidence of forest conversion to non-forest and prolonged establishment windows is accumulating. However,…
Feb 1 2024, 11am - 12pm
Climate change and other factors are increasing risks and uncertainties around fuels and fire management. As land management agencies seek to use prescribed fire and fuel treatments to shift ecosystems back into balance and protect communities at…
Feb 8 2024, 11am - 12pm
Many firefighters have been injured or killed due to rapid changes in weather causing unexpected fire behavior. Examples include the thunderstorm outflow that killed 19 on the Yarnell Hill Fire, the cold front passage that killed 14 on the South…
Feb 15 2024, 11am - 12pm
TreeMap, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data, and the Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) form an “analysis ecosystem” where spatially explicit estimation of forest characteristics can be made for current or future conditions. TreeMap takes the…
Feb 22 2024, 11am - 12pm
BehavePlus was first developed in 1998 by Pat Andrews, following the success of the DOS version of BEHAVE. Still in use today, there have been six versions, each with upgrades to aid in better calculating fire behavior. The current version of the…
Feb 29 2024, 11am - 12pm
Within the Great Basin of the western United States (US), hundreds of thousands of hectares of highly imperiled sagebrush ecosystems are converted to invasive annual grasses or seeded states each year following wildfires. In response to the effects…
Mar 28 2024, 11am - 12pm
Wilderness areas are important natural laboratories for scientists and managers working to understand fire. In the last half-century, shifts in the culture and policy of land management agencies have facilitated the management practice of letting…
Apr 18 2024, 11am - 12pm
Strategy on large wildland fires is a complex mix of tradeoffs made during periods of high uncertainty, driven by conflicting interests and valuations by multiple parties. Despite this, communicating these strategies is usually with four options…
May 9 2024, 11am - 12pm
LANDFIRE has been a foundational dataset for countless applications within the Forest Service and beyond. The machine learning methodology largely used in the creation of LF National (circa 2001) and LF 2016 Remap was rooted in supervised…
Nov 7 2024, 11am - 12pm
Join the Missoula Fire Sciences Lab for their 2024/2025 webinar series every Thursday at 11AM Mountain Time
"Wildland firefighters are exposed to hazards when working; these hazards can result in serious injury or death. Understanding the activities…
Nov 14 2024, 11am - 12pm
Join the Missoula Fire Sciences Lab for their 2024/2025 webinar series every Thursday at 11AM Mountain Time
"Lookouts, communications, escape routes, and safety zones (LCES) is a well-established protocol for keeping wildland firefighters safe.…
Dec 12 2024, 11am - 12pm
Join the Missoula Fire Sciences Lab for their 2024/2025 webinar series every Thursday at 11AM Mountain Time
"Fire suppression is the primary management response to wildfires in many areas globally. By removing less-extreme wildfires, this approach…
Jan 9 2025, 11am - 12pm
Join the Missoula Fire Sciences Lab for their 2024/2025 webinar series every Thursday at 11AM Mountain Time
"Two or more successive wildfires within a short time span (hereafter, reburns) can create substantive shifts in forest and wildland fuel…
Jan 16 2025, 11am - 12pm
Join the Missoula Fire Sciences Lab for their 2024/2025 webinar series every Thursday at 11AM Mountain Time