Dr. DellaSala has over 30 years of experience in forest ecosystems to include fire-dependent forests (DellaSala and Hanson 20151). His specialization includes developing conservation science approaches to accommodate wildfires for ecosystem benefits while reducing fire risks to communities.

He has published extensively on the impact of logging on fire severity in western forests (Bradley et al. 2016), limitations of forest thinning in a changing climate, livestock grazing effects to fire regimes (Beschta et al. 2012), increases in fire ignitions associated with road access (Ibisch et al. 2017), and climate change ramifications on altered fire regimes (DellaSala and Hanson 2015; also see Abatzoglou and Williams 2017).

The devastating losses of homes and life from recent wildfires in California and around the world have drawn a great deal of attention to what it means to live in the wildland-urban interface (WUI). Scientific studies have been conducted to reevaluate the usefulness of prescribed burns in the interest of wildfire mitigation.

“Despite substantial investments in modifying wildland fuels near populated areas, losses appear to be increasing. In this article, we examine the conditions under which WUI wildfire disasters occur and introduce a wildfire risk assessment framework.

“By using this framework, we examine how prefire mitigation activities failed to prevent significant structure loss during the Fourmile Canyon fire outside Boulder, CO. In light of these results, we suggest the need to reevaluate and restructure wildfire mitigation programs aimed at reducing residential losses from wildfire.”

Read the full study article here.