New Mexico Consortium Attends 4th Southwest Fire Ecology Conference
New Mexico Consortium Attends 4th Southwest Fire Ecology Conference
This last week, various scientists and staff from the New Mexico Consortium (NMC) attended the 4th Southwest Fire Ecology Conference, held November 18-22, 2024 at La Fonda on the Plaza in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
This conference, hosted by the Southwest Fire Science Consortium, Arizona Wildfire Initiative, and the Association for Fire Ecology, brought together professionals to share knowledge, exchange ideas, and discuss the latest advancements in fire ecology research and management with a focus on the southwestern United States. With the theme, The Southwest Fire Science Journey: Lessons from the Rearview, New and Unfamiliar Routes, and Promising Horizons, the conference aimed to increase our understanding of the past, present, and future of fire in the Southwest.
As a Gold Sponsor of the conference, the New Mexico Consortium and the NMC Center for Applied Fire and Ecosystem Science (CAFES), was an exhibitor at the technology tables during the poster session and at the exhibitor booths during the conference. CAFES stated mission of Advancing next generation tools, technologies, and science in support of ecosystems, conservation, and cultural resource management and research was put on display at the conference and fit well with the “Promising Horizons” theme. Along with LANL collaborators, CAFES scientists highlighted new technologies in fuels monitoring and modeling along with advanced physics-based fire models. These tools represent a leap forward in the use of technologies and tools to assist in the management of natural resources with fire. CAFES scientists and NMC staff were available to visit with anyone interested in what we do and speak about their work advancing next generation tools, technologies and science in support of ecosystems.
NMC scientists who attended the event and gave presentations include:
- Scott Pokwinski who spoke on Advancing fuels and ecological monitoring with terrestrial LiDAR for fire modeling
- Nancy Karraker who spoke on a new framework for post-wildfire wildlife habitat monitoring with terrestrial LiDAR
- Niko Tutland whose talk was titled “Put on your 3D grasses: Representing heterogeneous vegetation for next-generation fire behavior models
- Anthony Marcozzi on Spatial inventory distribution in FastFuels with semantic segmentation and imputation.
In the Modeling and Mapping Poster Session, Alex Masarie gave his poster on Analyzing Betti numbers in forest LiDAR data: Spatial correlation with voxelized fuel loading. And Scott Pokwinski, along with Andi Thode, presented on Tools and Technologies: Continuing Education for Natural Resources, Forest and fire Management.
Thank you to all who attended the SW Fire Ecology Conference, stopped by the NMC demonstration and posters, and came by to network and talk about the future of fire science!