“Fire has made us civilized, but we still don’t understand it fully,” said Tirtha Banerjee, [UCI engineering assistant professor] …. “Scientists have been “just completely caught off guard about how fast things are changing,” said James T. Randerson, [UCI Chancellor’s Professor, Earth system science]. … Banerjee and his team of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers flew their drone repeatedly over the area, mapping it ….. By comparing images from before, during and after the burn, Banerjee’s team could pinpoint exactly how the fire had transformed the forest floor. [Subscription required, campus-wide access provided by UCI Libraries. Sign-up here: https://guides.lib.uci.edu/nytimes] Read More