Prescribed Fire Science Consortium Secures Department of Defense Grants

Forest Service ScientistsPrescribed Fire Science Consortium led by Tall Timbers’ Wildland Fire Science program secures four Department of Defense SERDP grants to study 3D fuels and fire spread.

Through the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) the Department of Defense periodically funds environmental research projects to address wide ranging issues from military land management and climate to weapon system use and everything in between. These extremely competitive grants generate solutions to the Department’s environmental challenges reducing costs, environmental risks, and time required to resolve environmental problems while enhancing and sustaining military readiness.

Last October, SERDP released a statement of need requesting proposals of wildland fire research to improve military land use efficiency. The research objectives requested by this statement of need included an understanding of fire processes and fuel characterization in time and space through diverse conditions. The recently organized Prescribed Fire Consortium led by Tall Timbers is uniquely poised to answer all of the objectives laid out in the statement of need, and as such, was successful in securing four grants totaling 6.4 million dollars over the next four years.

These grants include two 3D fuel characterization grants using Terrestrial LiDAR techniques, a fire pattern and processes modeling grant and a grant that ties fuel characterization to modeling and fire processes.

Photo: US Forest Service research scientists test a 3D fuel sampling rig that will help validate remote sensing fuel sampling techniques that will be developed by the SERDP grants.

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