WILDFIRE-What can you do to lower your risk? • Schedule a Firewise assessment • Look where leaves in the fall collect around your house, that is were embers will go. Remove fuel from those places and harden your home.

 

Event Type: Webinars, Seminars and Presentations
Nov 20, 2024

11:00am – 12:00pm AKST
Contact Alison York ayork@alaska.edu

Location
Online only, please register here

 Alaska Fire Science Consortium webinar presented by Jen Schmidt, Associate Professor of Natural Resource Management and Policy, Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER).

We present a method to assess wildfire risk to structures based on the wildfire exposure method developed for Alaska. This risk approach uses common spatial datasets gathered by communities and emphasizes that buildings are fuel. Similar to the wildfire exposure approach, the risk assessment process developed is straightforward, easy to understand, and makes fewer assumptions than other wildfire risk assessment approaches. Our study areas include the Municipality of Anchorage, Fairbanks North Star Borough, and Kenai Peninsula Borough. In conjunction, we also developed a powerline risk assessment, but much of the details that might inform vulnerability calculations for electrical power transmission and distribution are proprietary and not widely available. Considering this limitation, our risk assessment provides a basic distribution of vulnerability ratings and highlights the most significant concerns for power disruption from wildfires.

Please see AURA_Wildfire_Hazards_JSchmidt for the larger image and to use a PDF reader.