Wildfire

Facing a Top Climate Factor of Our Time

The multi-disciplinary approach to fire science and management at SJSU displays a commitment to understanding and mitigating the physical and social effects of fire as one of the most critical emerging environmental factors of our time. Leading-edge tools and policies created at SJSU are in use worldwide. Below is a rotating selection of our standout investigators in this area.

   ○ Recent News and Highlights
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• Selected Publications

  • Brewer, M. and Clements, C. (2019). The 2018 Camp Fire: Meteorological analysis using in situ observations and numerical simulations. Atmosphere, 11(1).

    Dhar, S. and Gao, J. (2023). Wildfire Air Quality Prediction: A Data-Driven Approach. International Journal of Disaster Response and Emergency Management, 6(1).

    Kochanski, A., et al. (2023). Analysis of methods for assimilating fire perimeters into a coupled fire-atmosphere model. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, 6.

    Russell, W. and McBride, J. (2003). Landscape scale vegetation-type conversion and fire hazard in the San Francisco bay area open spaces. Landscape and Urban Planning, 64(4).

    Wilkin, K., Stasiewicz, S., Kocher (2023). Increasing prescribed fire use on private lands: findings from prescribed fire workshops with private landowners in the Sierra Nevada region of California. Journal of Fire Ecology.

• Award Highlights

  • Clements, Tohidi, Wilkin, Kochanski, Stasiewicz, “IUCRC Phase I, San Jose State University: Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center (WIRC)” — NSF, 2021

    Kochanski, “Distributed Spacecraft with Heuristic Intelligence to Monitor Wildfire Spread for Responsive Control” — NASA through the Bay Area Research Institute, 2023

    Kochanski, Clements, “Evaluating and Improving Live and Dead Fuel Moisture Models for Use in Gridded Forecast Systems” — U.S. Forest Service, 2023

    Wilkin, Staciewicz,  “The Central Coast Prescribed Fire Monitoring Program” — California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), 2023

    Yang, Wilkin, “NASA Bridge Program, FireSage: SJSU-NASA" — NASA, 2023

• Affiliates

  • Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center 

    Fire Weather Research Laboratory

Featured Faculty

Craig Clements
Professor of Meteorology and Climate Science
Fire Weather, Wildfire Observations, Extreme Fire Behavior, Mountain Meteorology
ORCID: 0000-0001-9999-8621

Subhankar Dhar
Professor of Information Systems and Technology
Data Science, AI, Mobile Computing, Ad Hoc Networks, Smart Cities, Big Data Analytics
ORCID: 0000-0003-1493-451X

Adam Kochanski
Associate Professor of Meteorology and Climate Science
Wildfires, Air Quality, Fire Modeling, Smoke, Fire Risk, Machine Learning, Smoke Forecasting, Satellite Fire Detections, Dire Forecasting, WRF-SFIRE, WRFx
ORCID: 0000-0001-7820-2831

Will Russell
Professor of Environmental Studies
Forest Disturbance and Recovery, Fire Ecology Ecosystem Restoration, Environmental Education
ORCID: 0000-0003-3778-3734

Ali Tohidi
Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Fluid and Fire Dynamics, Data-Driven Modeling and Control, High-Performance Scientific Computing (HPSC), Wildland Fires
ORCID: 0000-0001-7511-9274

Kate Wilkin
Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences
Fire Ecology and Management, Home Ignition Zones, Fuels Treatments, Prescribed Fire
ORCID: 0000-0002-4928-3879

Potential collaborators and members of the media may contact us at officeofresearch@sjsu.edu.