Wildfires are a common occurrence across the country today, so predicting where they will happen is of great interest to scientists and the public in general.

UW School of Environmental and Forest Sciences research scientist Susan Prichard, along with researchers from UW and Michigan Technological University, have created the first comprehensive database of all the wildlife fuels that have been measured across North America in an attempt to better predict where wildfires will occur, according to a recent story by UW News.

The database is called the North American Wildland Fuel Database and is a tool that incorporates the best available measurements of vegetation in specific locations, and allows fire managers to see where information about fuels is missing altogether. Ultimately, it will help scientists make more informed decisions about fire and smoke situations. The new database is described in a paper published Dec. 4 in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Biogeosciences.

“Where there are fuels and fire, there’s smoke,” Prichard, who is the lead author, told UW News. “This database is informing more realistic predictions of smoke that allow for the fact that we might not have dialed in the fuels perfectly.”

Read the full story here.