By Raymond Zhong Photographs by Andri Tambunan Prescribed burns are key to reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfires. Scientists are using high-tech tools to ensure they can be done safely in a warming world.
A prescribed burn at Blodgett Forest Research Station, northeast of Sacramento, Calif.
GEORGETOWN, Calif. — Waves of fire swept through the Sierra Nevada forest, churning up smoke and leaving charred vegetation behind — all under the watchful eye of a heavy-duty drone. Instruments around the perimeter snatched up samples of the singed particles spewing into the air.
Prescribed burns, an age-old practice that rids forests of the small trees, brush and other matter than can fuel wildfires, are getting a 21st-century upgrade.
With climate change parching the land and increasing wildfire hazards, scientists are beginning to use cutting-edge technology and computer modeling to make controlled, low-intensity burns safer, more effective and less disruptive to nearby communities.
“Fire has made us civilized, but we still don’t understand it fully,” said Tirtha Banerjee of the University of California, Irvine, as he watched a tall heap of dead tree limbs go up in flames.
As useful as prescribed burns can be for maintaining forests, they are tough to carry out — costly, labor-intensive, contingent on narrowing windows of favorable weather. And even well-planned burns can turn disastrous, as when a fire started by the United States Forest Service this spring was transformed by gusting winds into New Mexico’s largest wildfire on record.
Scientists think we can do better. Several teams recently converged at Blodgett Forest Research Station northeast of Sacramento, an area thick with towering Ponderosa pine, Douglas fir and incense cedar. A planned burn at Blodgett was a precious opportunity to collect data in the field, and the researchers packed carloads of gear including GoPro cameras, drone-mounted sensors for mapping the terrain in minute detail, a sonic anemometer for measuring wind and an assortment of machines that collected airborne particles.
