CEE Seminar: Wildfire Engineering: Integrating Models with Data to Provide Active- and Pre-Fire Solutions

Abstract: Wildland fires play a vital role in maintaining healthy ecosystems, but the growing wildland-urban interface, coupled with climate change and other human activities, has significantly increased wildfire hazards in recent decades. Wildfires are now among the most critical natural threats to our physical, environmental, social, economic and health systems. This presentation highlights recent advancements in active-fire decision support and pre-fire risk assessment. For active-fire management, we emphasize the need for low-latency, high-resolution data to enhance situational awareness, alongside accurate fire behavior modeling capable of predicting wildfire dynamics faster than real-time. Key advancements in wildland fire modeling will be presented, focusing on canopy fuel modeling, fire spotting and fuel characterization. Given the difficulties of gathering observational data during wildfires, we introduce a deep learning method that enhances satellite observation resolution, enabling more precise fire monitoring. Additionally, a probabilistic wildfire risk assessment framework will be discussed to quantify pre-fire risk as the probability of loss from wildfires. Finally, the presentation will address current technical challenges in wildfire monitoring, simulation and data assimilation while outlining a forward-looking vision for wildfire engineering research to encourage further contributions from the engineering community.

Bio: Hamed Ebrahimian is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR). He is the recipient of the 2024 Nevada Jason Geddes Rising Researcher award and the NSF CAREER award. Ebrahimian joined UNR in 2019, following a senior engineering position in industry and a postdoctoral appointment at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He earned his Ph.D. in structural engineering in 2015 and a second master’s degree in mechanical engineering in 2013, both from UC San Diego. Prior to his doctoral studies, Ebrahimian worked for several years as a structural design engineer in his home country. His research lies at the intersection of computational methods and data science, focusing on prediction, monitoring, data assimilation and uncertainty quantification. He is currently leading a multi-institutional, multidisciplinary research project in wildfire engineering and risk assessment. Drawing from his background in earthquake engineering and structural mechanics, Ebrahimian applies his expertise in computational modeling and data-driven approaches to advance wildfire engineering research.

After the seminar: Join us for a reception hosted by Civil and Environmental Engineering Graduate Association (CEEGA). All students, researchers, faculty, and guest are invited. Reception is located at Engineering Hall EH-2430 Colloquia Patio. Contact CEEGA@uci.edu for more information. RSVP here: https://forms.gle/sqYdpVNdcMopeHpp7