Workshop on Remote Sensing in Boreal/Arctic Wildfire Management and Science April 4-6, 2017 University of Alaska Fairbanks

This is to alert this community of an upcoming workshop on the application of remote sensing to boreal and arctic wildfire management, organized by the Alaska Fire Science Consortium April 4-6, 2017 in Fairbanks, AK.

Please see https://www.frames.gov/partner-sites/afsc/events/previous-events/workshops/2017-rs-workshop/  to submit abstracts and travel support requests. Please distribute widely.
Background and objectives: With support from NASA, the Alaska Fire Science Consortium (AFSC) is organizing an international workshop to advance remote sensing tools and data for operational and scientific applications by high northern latitude fire ecology and management communities. Participants will include interagency fire managers as well as scientists with an interest in remote sensing and a variety of disciplines.

Topics of interest include:

Potential fire risk: Can remotely sensed data (e.g., daily snow extent, others) estimate spring soil moisture and surface and subsurface fuel moisture and fuel conditions, and thus provide critical inputs for fuel moisture indices used to predict fire danger and risk?
Near real-time fire behavior: Which remotely sensed data are best and most timely for fire detection, plume tracking of fire emissions, fire behavior modeling, mapping of flaming fronts, fire intensity, active fire perimeters, and response for ongoing fires?
Post-fire effects: Can we improve analytical methods for remotely sensed data to assess fire severity, consumption/CO2 balance, active-layer changes, and successional trajectories of high latitude vegetation communities?

The outcomes of this workshop are expected to include co-developed investigations into new management and scientific uses of remote sensing data, increasing the scientific foundation and operational efficiency of northern fire management; improving understanding of climate-induced changes in northern fire regimes and ecosystem components and potential feedbacks to the global climate system; and leading to expanded application and use of remotely sensed data for fire management and fire science in high latitudes.

AFSC will publish workshop proceedings, including presentation abstracts, results, and consensus recommendations. This project is a contribution to the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee’s Wildfire Collaboration Team. Please see Intensification of Wildfire in High Latitudes: Research Priorities to Help Fire Managers and Satellite and Airborne Fire Sensor Systems for Arctic Wildfire Observations for additional background.

Guide for authors: Abstracts of up to 500 words for both oral and poster presentations are welcome. The deadline to submit abstracts is November 15, 2016. To submit abstracts, click here.

Applications for travel support: Limited funding is available to offset selected presenters’ travel expenses, with priority given to students and other young investigators. Applications for travel support are available here and are due November 15, 2016.

Associated training opportunity: With sufficient interest, NASA’s Applied Remote Sensing Training (ARSET) project and/or Short-term Prediction Research and Transistion Center (SPoRT) will offer an optional day of hands-on training for integrating NASA Earth Science data into wildland fire science, decisionmaking, and management. Please indicate your interest in this opportunity on the submission form.