The Arizona Board of Regents is taking a think-tank approach to come up with a roadmap for managing Arizona’s changing fire patterns and strengthening the state’s wildland fire response.
ABOR hosted a meeting of state leaders earlier this week to talk about it.
Regent Fred DuVal said it’s part of a series of talks aimed at using the state’s universities to solve Arizona’s most pressing issues.
"We did one in Yuma on agriculture, we did one in Phoenix on tech-transfer," DuVal said. “This particular one deals with the obvious issue that forestry is a huge part of Arizona. It’s 27% of the state. It’s part of our identity. It’s core to our recreation, but how do we keep our communities safe and also keep our forests healthy?”
Representatives from the state’s three public universities and the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management convened with state, federal, tribal, fire and industry leaders and experts to brainstorm solutions. For example, “ASU is pioneering new sensors, which we’re gonna distribute all over the state of Arizona, which enable us to determine conditions where a fire is imminent and likely to break out, so that we can have earlier intervention," DuVal said.
The state has seen a third more forest fire damage this year than last year, which is why ABOR wants to turn research into scalable solutions for fire officials.
"NAU is monitoring migration patterns of the bark beetle, which is an invasive species, which kills the trees, makes them drier and therefore kindling for more intense and more frequent fires," DuVal said. "And the UA's tree ring research is world class and is helping us to identify historically the patterns of wildfires, so that we can learn the tendencies of fires in different parts of Arizona and the directions they're likely to move."
