EXPERTS ADVISORY

More than 100 wildfires are burning across Canada and the United States, the largest of which is located in California. Dubbed the Park Fire, it has burned more than 385,000 acres, or about 601 square miles. University of Michigan experts are available to comment.

Paige Fischer, associate professor at the School for Environment and Sustainability, is a social scientist who studies wildfires. She conducts research on how people experience and perceive wildfire risk, as well as what motivates and constrains them in taking action to reduce risk. She also examines how people adapt to long-term changes in climate conditions that drive wildfire risk.

“This summer’s wildfires are consistent with the trend scientists have expected and the public has experienced in recent years—wildfires are becoming more damaging, and in many places, they are occurring with greater frequency, magnitude and severity,” said Fischer, principal investigator of the Western Forest and Fire Initiative at U-M.

“Beyond the existential crisis that wildfires pose to neighborhoods and communities in the wildland-urban interface, we should be extremely concerned about wildfire impact that is most difficult to control: toxic smoke. We are just beginning to understand how bad wildfire smoke is for human health and how many people are exposed, especially from vulnerable populations.”

Contact: [email protected]

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Jonathan Overpeck is an interdisciplinary climate scientist and dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability. He is an expert on climate and weather extremes, sea-level rise, and the impacts of climate change and options for dealing with it. He served as a lead author on the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 and 2014 reports.

“The current North American wildfire season is surging across the western U.S. and Canada, made worse by the warming and drying effects of human-caused climate change, he said. “As climate change worsens, so too does the risk of ever larger and more severe wildfires.

“The growing wildfire crisis is also leading to significant declines in air quality, including far from the wildfires themselves, as well as often devastating consequences for human infrastructure and communities where fires are occurring. Erosion, landslides and water contamination are also becoming larger problems as climate change-supercharged wildfire seasons continue to get worse.”

Contact: [email protected]

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Richard Rood, professor of climate and space sciences and engineering at the College of Engineering, can discuss the intersections of wildfires and climate, and climate and society.

“Over the last few years, fire season has become routine. This is especially true in the U.S. and Canadian West, and summer 2023 showed millions that wildfire in the East is also possible,” he said. “If fires are hundreds or a thousand miles distant, the smoke can cover much of the continent and even cross oceans. The smoke causes significant degradation of air quality, as well as smoggy conditions that many find disheartening.

“The warming climate contributes to a lengthening of fire season, as well as the intensity and size of fires. The higher temperatures dry out fuels, forests and grasslands, more quickly than in the past. Extreme heat dries out regions before drought conditions set it.

“Chronic drought, especially in the West, contributes to massive fires. Though landscape management is important to fire prevention, the warming climate changes what is happening on the ground, which challenges even the best of our historical practices.”

Contact: 301-526-8572, [email protected]

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Susan Woolford, associate professor of pediatrics at the Medical School, co-directs C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health.

“Children’s organs are still developing, making them more susceptible to health risks from exposure to polluted air caused by wildfire smoke and other pollutants. This makes it essential to take precautions to protect their well-being when the air is unhealthy,” she said. “Our report suggests poor air quality is a common issue for families. Local news and weather reports may help parents gauge their community’s air quality, but many seem unsure about how to protect their child when air quality worsens.”

Contact: Beata Mostafavi, 734-764-2220, [email protected]

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Seymour Spence, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the College of Engineering, can discuss research that includes the modeling of wildfire at the interface of urban communities.

“Wildfires are increasingly becoming a global crisis, intensified by climate change and human activity,” he said. “The current situation in California and Canada serves as a stark reminder of the urgent need for comprehensive management and international cooperation to mitigate these disasters.

“My research is focused on computational modeling of wildfires, aiming to predict fire behavior and its impact on urban areas. By leveraging these models, we can enhance our understanding of fire dynamics and develop more effective evacuation plans and resource allocation strategies. It is imperative that we invest in such technologies to protect both lives and infrastructure from future wildfire events.”

Contact: 734-764-9317, [email protected]

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Ann Jeffers, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the College of Engineering, can speak to fire safety engineering and adapting to “the new normal” of wildfire activity.

“There is rightfully a lot of public interest in the U.S. with wildfires and their impacts on health and infrastructure,” she said. “While the western U.S. has had concerns for a long time due to the direct effect of severe wildfires adjacent to communities, the eastern U.S. has only recently started to see the impacts on air quality, with some days being outright dangerous to step outside because of fires in Canada.

“Unfortunately, with climate change and the hot, dry conditions we have seen in recent years, the problem is only expected to worsen. As an engineer, my goal is not to prevent the inevitable, but rather to help communities to adapt to the new normal. This can be achieved through hardening infrastructure at the wildland-urban interface as well as taking measures to protect communities whose air quality is affected sometimes hundreds of miles from the fire source.”

Contact: 734-764-9317, [email protected]