I will be recruiting 1-2 new PhD students next year. Areas of interest include experimental fire research focused on flame spread, ignition, flammability or emissions of wildland or urban fuels and modeling the spread of fires through the wildland-urban interface.

www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/...

California communities can reduce wildfire damage by half. Here’s how:
Our new study "Fire risk to structures in California’s Wildland-Urban Interface" was published in Nature Communications today! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
news.berkeley.edu/2025/08/28/c...

ACS's Chemical and Engineering News recently highlighted our research on WUI Fire emissions, including both recent laboratory work lnkd.in/gV_Wv58R and ongoing experiments at IBHS that will soon provide detailed emissions measurements from FULL SCALE structure burns! cen.acs.org/environment/...

“The frank reality is that we have to live differently in California,” Yana Valachovic @ucanr.edu told @toddwoody.bsky.social
Zone Zero would nearly double home survival rates in wildfires. “Doing this on a community level dramatically reduces risk,” said @gollnerfire.bsky.social

Great to see @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social highlight some ofoutreach and community work coming from both my wildfire class and the Berkeley Fire Research Lab. We've enjoyed our partnerships with the Berkeley Fire Safe Council and many other groups.
news.berkeley.edu/2025/07/09/w...

The California Fire Science Seminar Series will return on February 4, 2025, at 10 am PT. Join us for the weekly, virtual presentation and discussion on emerging fire science topics from a variety of speakers.
cafiresci.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?...

Los Angeles has some of the toughest wildfire policies in the country when it comes to building codes and vegetation. But these fires show there’s more to do. On @npr.org today www.npr.org/2025/01/15/n...

The International Fire Safety Consortium led development of an amazing resource many don't know about: a wildfire webinar series produced in coordination with @ULFSRI. 15 weeks worth of lectures are posted covering the field. Like wildfire 101. A great resource to get started!
buff.ly/4cHYGun

Here's the reality about the #LAFires this week: this isn't the first time ANY of these places have burned. Not even close. In 2018, we mapped CA fire history to look at fire frequency across SoCal. Santa Monica Mtns area burns more than anywhere else -- up to once per decade in a given spot. 🧵

Hollywood Blvd is now in a mandatory evacuation zone for the #Sunset fire.

It's gridlock.

There’s so much discussion of what political side to blame. If we’re talking about saving homes and lives @billclerico.bsky.social comment below nails it. We need protection close to homes and that’s mostly private property. It’s a huge technical, SOCIAL, and economic problem to solve

Many great resources for SoCal #CAFires. I recommend:
1. WatchDuty app for evacs, shelter, etc
2. @weatherwest.bsky.social does regular zoom "office hours" and explainers
3. Ben @ai6yr.m.ai6yr.org.ap.brid.gy
4. TheLookout runs a fab explainer on his YT channel:

This isn’t the first California fire disaster, and it won’t be the last. Each time we hope that real change will occur, but it hasn’t yet. Watch videos of these fires, once they’re going under these winds there’s nothing that can suppress them. Mitigation BEFORE the fire is what we need

Things could still break for the positive, but it is seeming more likely that the losses from tonight's fires could push insurance markets over the brink in California - despite all the good work CDI and stakeholders have done over the past few years to stabilize the situation.

With the Eaton and Palisades Fires destroying likely hundreds of homes, a reminder that SoCal's worst firestorms involve multiple fires stretching resources thin. If you live anywhere near these fires (or any new ones), DO NOT WAIT for someone to knock/tell you to leave. Be Prepared and Go Early!

Congratulations to former student Lilly Etzenbach who received the first place award for her poster on our work on the flammability and burn injury risk of astronaut clothing fabric in space at the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research conference!