Ernesto Alvarado
- Research Associate Professor
Research areas
Wildland fire science; fire ecology and management; combustion and fire behavior; carbon emissions; fire and climate change; quantitative modeling; international forestry; traditional ecological knowledge
B.S., Agricultural Engineering with a minor in plant protection, Universidad Autonoma Chapingo, Chapingo, Mexico
M.S., Silviculture and Forest Management, Postgraduate College, Chapingo, Mexico
Ph.D., Wildland Fire Sciences, University of Washington
Courses
- ESRM 420 | Wildland Fire Management (5) - Spring
- SEFS 535 | Fire Ecology (4) - Autumn
Current Sponsored Projects
- Air Quality Impact and Community Health Burden from Large Wildfire Emissions
The purpose of this Joint Venture Agreement is to collaborate with the USFS PNW Research Station on research aimed to providing core fire emission inventory(s) used on regional-scale air quality modeling, overall model evaluation and determination of model sensitivity runs, and assessment of regional public health during large fire incidents in the NW and Northern California. - Integration of New Generation of 3-D Fuel Characterization, Physics-Based Fire Models, and Tree Mortality
The goal of this project is to advance our understanding of 3D fuel characterization and provide evaluation datasets advance physics-based fire behavior, tree mortality in severe wildfires, smoke and other fire effects models for operational use at scales relevant to land managers. - Research to Improve Decision-Making Tools for Wildland Fire Air Quality Response and Fire Operations Programs
The purpose of this agreement is to support the development and improvement of decision- making tools developed by the AIRFire research team. - Research Support to Develop Applications to Support Decision Making in Fuel and Fire Management
The purpose of this CRA is to support the development of fuel and fire tools used by land and fire managers to support decision making during prescribed burns and wildfires for reducing the impacts of fire on ecosystems and smoke emissions; incorporate new developments on geospatial science and technology to advance fire science and enhance management decision-making tools. - Application of New Spatial Technologies to Advance Fuel Characterization, Combustion Models, and Fire Effects
The purpose of this CRA is to support the development of field sampling and mapping protocols for fuels and fire, enhance the USFS FERA's software tools for decision-making in fuels management, and reduce the impacts of fire on ecosystems and smoke emissions. - Decision Support Tools for Smoke Management from Wildland Fires
This CRA project will support the development of stand-alone and web-based decision support tools for air resource advisory teams, fire incident managers, and public health specialists. - Improving Estimates of Future Fires, Fire Emissions, and Smoke
This research will advance climate, fire, and smoke science in support of building a better understanding of how fire and smoke emissions are affected by and affect the atmosphere, including weather and climate, and how this knowledge can be used to develop scenarios and tools to better inform land managers. - Integration of Models and Information Systems for Improving Decision Making During Wildland Fire Smoke Episodes
This new Joint Venture Agreement supports the collaboration between USFS PNW Atmosphere and Fire Interactions Research Team (AIRFire) and the UW School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. - Planning and Fuel Data for the Fire and Smoke Model Evaluation Experiment (FASMEE)
The purpose of this CRA is to support the USFS PWFSL to plan and execute the Fire and Smoke Model Evaluation Experiment (FASMEE), which is a large-scale effort to identify the critical measurements necessary to improve operational wildland fire and smoke production systems, collect observations through a coordinated field campaign, and use these measures and observations to evaluate and advance science and modeling capabilities for operational fire and smoke systems. - Quantifying the Effects of Variable Density Retention Salvage Logging on Forest Structure, Fuel Succession and Wildfire Behavior
We will remeasure/establish on very large and extreme wildfires a replicated long-term project to quantify treatments at varying levels of salvage logging, seedling planting, and herbicide application. - Research on Fire, Fuels, Landscape Ecology, and the Wildland-Urban-Interface
This CRA will develop a fire and fuel management application to integrate fuels, consumption in wildland fires, and combustion phases, and other research tasks. - Studies on Biomass Combustion and Wildland Fire Effects at Different Geospatial Scales
Tasks for the joint venture agreement are to conduct an intensive analysis of pre- and post-fire damage on restoration prescribed fires in Eastern Washington, and other research tasks.
Selected publications
Zou, Y., O’Neill, S. M., Larkin, N. K., Alvarado, E. C., Solomon, R., Mass, C., … & Shen, H. (2019). Machine Learning-Based Integration of High-Resolution Wildfire Smoke Simulations and Observations for Regional Health Impact Assessment. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(12), 2137.
Briones-Herrera, C. I., Vega-Nieva, D. J., Monjarás-Vega, N. A., Flores-Medina, F., Lopez-Serrano, P. M., Corral-Rivas, J. J., … & Arellano-Pérez, S. (2019). Modeling and Mapping Forest Fire Occurrence from Aboveground Carbon Density in Mexico. Forests, 10(5), 402.
Guo, F., Ju, Y., Wang, G., Alvarado, E. C., Yang, X., Ma, Y., & Liu, A. (2018). Inorganic chemical composition of PM2. 5 emissions from the combustion of six main tree species in subtropical China. Atmospheric Environment, 189, 107-115.
Podschwit, H., Larkin, N., Steel, E., Cullen, A., & Alvarado, E. (2018). Multi-Model Forecasts of Very-Large Fire Occurences during the End of the 21st Century. Climate, 6(4), 100.
Krieger Filho, G. C., Bufacchi, P., Santos, J. C., Veras, C. A. G., Alvarado, E. C., Mell, W., & Carvalho, J. A. (2017). Probability of surface fire spread in Brazilian rainforest fuels from outdoor experimental measurements. European journal of forest research, 136(2), 217-232.