The Governors of the University of Alberta

Published purpose

The overall aim of this project is to identify a standardized methodology for assessing fuel hazard and fire exposure to sites and communities in Canada. The project will: (1) review and document emerging methods for enhanced mapping of fine-resolution fuel attributes (i.e., remote sensing, LiDAR, UAVs, ML) and assess costs and benefits of these data compared with traditional fuel data sources such as forest inventory data; (2) assess the alignment of high-resolution fuel-based metrics with observed burned areas using empirical modeling methods in order to validate these fuel-based metrics; and (3) explore compatibility and integration of validated high-resolution fuelbased metrics with other fire controls (e.g., weather, ignition patterns) commonly used in existing fire hazard and exposure assessment frameworks.