Sponsors

W. Matt Jolly, US Forest Service, Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory, United States of America

 

Short Biography: Dr. W. Matt Jolly is a Research Ecologist with the US Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory, where he explores the intricate relationships between vegetation dynamics, weather, and wildfire behavior. As the science lead for the US National Fire Danger Rating System and head of the live fuel dynamics research team, his work integrates field and laboratory studies to significantly advance the understanding of live plant flammability. Dr. Jolly's extensive contributions, documented in numerous influential publications, focus not only on foundational science but also on translating this knowledge into action, accelerating and improving wildland fire decision-making through better tools that characterize spatial and temporal fire potential variations. His research offers critical insights into the fundamental drivers of live fuel flammability and demonstrates how new knowledge can be leveraged to improve global wildfire management.

Short Summary: As the world struggles to adapt to increasingly complex and destructive wildland fires, the need for more sophisticated fire danger and behavior tools has never been clearer. This keynote challenges conventional assumptions regarding live fuels and their role in wildland fire behavior. We introduce a novel, mechanistic modeling approach that predicts live fuel moisture by analyzing carbon and water variations in foliage. This new understanding offers a critical opportunity to re-evaluate how live fuels are represented in decision support systems, providing a framework to integrate ecosystem dynamics and weather for a more comprehensive understanding of wildfire hazards. We will demonstrate how incorporating this new knowledge into fire danger rating systems, combined with wildfire hazard and vulnerability assessments, can enable the development of 'impacts-based' fire risk models and maps. This will deliver more actionable and precise forecasts for scientists and fire managers alike. Finally, we will explore how to better align model outputs with various wildland fire management decisions, ensuring information is both useable and actionable. Ultimately, these advancements will empower more informed decision-making and build greater resilience in the face of escalating worldwide wildfire threats.