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Here are some ideas to get you thinking about projects related to Wildland Fire problems. This list is by no means exhaustive; these ideas are examples of problems identified by some of our faculty and industry mentors. Teams are encouraged to either pursue one of these sample problems or one related to their own interests and ideas.

Also, if you missed the Winter Quarter Seminar series on Wildfires, you might want to hear some ideas shared by our great speakers.

Tree Assessment Tool

Create a tool to automate the tree assessment process used by PG&E to reduce wildfire risk.

Wildfire Carbon Quantification

Use Planet data to improve carbon quantification metrics

Worldwide high fire threat district (HFTD) Map

Develop a tool that creates a high fire threat district map for the world.

Improving forestry services and defensible space

Supporting fire prevention efforts for forestry services and defensible space programs at CAL FIRE

Community Resilience

focus on ways to improve communication with vulnerable and traditionally under-represented populations

Wildfire Machine Learning / AI Capabilities

using satellite- and sensor-based wildfire data to improve impact tracking

Minimizing Ignitions

Can utilities operate the grid differently than PSPS?

Risk-based maintenance strategy

What does a risk based vegetation maintenance strategy look like that balance’s lifecycle costs, performance and risks on outages and ignitions? 

Infrastructure Inspection

Can AI be used to provide timely and accurate infrastructure inspections?

Map of California

Evacuation routes

CALFIRE needs help developing real time evacuation tools

Map of California

Early Detection Using Cameras

Improve early detection of wildfires using wildfire tracking cameras

Pile of chopped wood

Smallwood Utilization

Developing new technologies and uses for harvested materials

Charity Navigator logo

Disaster Philanthropy

Tracking WIldfire Donations

Diagram of Equality vs Equity

Vulnerable Populations

Can you empower vulnerable populations?

N95 mask

Building Air Filters

Facilitating whole home air filtering

Forest fire by a cabin

Home Protection

What is the best investment for protecting your home at the WUI?

forest with section of trees cut down

Multi-benefit Forest Management

Balancing goals for recreation, forestry, grazing, and mining

Pile of chopped wood

Improved Smallwood Harvesting

We need improved ways to process accumulated fuels, preferably without fire.

Satellite image of Cuba's fires

Satellite Tracking

Improve tracking of wildfires from satellite images

 

COVID cell

Cascading disasters

How can competing disasters be managed?

California Wild Fire Map

Public Health and Wildfires

Develop a system to track health impacts

unemployment sign

Economic impacts

What jobs are most impacted by wildfires?

Diagram of people with comment boxes

Public Opinion

What kind of public support is there for wildland fire policies?