The American Geosciences Institute’s Critical Issues Program is pleased to offer a free webinar in partnership with the American Association of Geographers, “Adapting Wildfire Management to 21st Century Conditions,” on May 16th at 1:00 PM EDT.

Critical Issues Webinar: “Adapting Wildfire Management to 21st Century Conditions”

The combination of frequent droughts, changing climate conditions, and longer fire seasons along with urban development expansion into wildland areas has resulted in more difficult conditions for managing wildfires. Over the last several decades, the size of wildfire burn areas has increased substantially and nine of the 10 years with the largest wildfire burn areas have occurred since 2000. Wildfires are causing more frequent and wider-ranging societal impacts, especially as residential communities continue to expand into wildland areas.  Since 2000, there have been twelve wildfires in the United States that have each caused damages exceeding a billion dollars; cumulatively these twelve wildfires have caused a total of $44 billion dollars in damages. As of 2010, 44 million homes in the conterminous United States were located within the wildland-urban-interface, an area where urban development either intermingles with or is in the vicinity of large areas of dense wildland vegetation. These challenging conditions present a unique opportunity to adapt existing wildfire policy and management strategies to present and future wildfire scenarios.

This Critical Issues webinar explores recent trends in wildfires and changes in contributing factors / drivers of these hazards, and features case studies of wildfire policy and management strategies in the western and southern United States.

The webinar speakers are:

  • Tania Schoennagel, Ph.D., Research Scientist, University of Colorado-Boulder, INSTAAR
  • David Godwin, Ph.D., Southern Fire Exchange / University of Florida
  • Vaughan Miller, Deputy Chief, Ventura County Fire Department

AGI would like to recognize the webinar co-sponsors: American Association of Geographers, American Institute of Professional Geologists, Geological Society of America, Southern Fire Exchange, and the Ventura Land Trust.

To register for this webinar, please visit: https://crm.americangeosciences.org/civicrm/event/register?reset=1&id=112

After registering, a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar will be sent to you. AGI will post a recording of the webinar on the Critical Issues program’s website after the event. If you cannot make the webinar but would like to be informed about the recording, please register and AGI will notify you as soon as the recording is available.

CEUs:
All registrants who have paid for CEUs from the American Institute of Professional Geologists and attend the entire duration of the live webinar will receive 0.1 CEUs from AIPG.

If you have any questions about this webinar, please contact Leila Gonzales at lmg [at] americangeosciences [dot] org.

Additional upcoming AGI webinars:

May 11th, 1:00 PM EDT: The Current and Mid-21st Century Geoscience Workforce