Forestry Research Seminar: "Rethinking risk: new insights from wildfire modelling" with Dr. Jen Beverly (March 1st)

Topic: “Rethinking risk: new insights from wildfire modelling”

Speaker: Dr. Jen Beverly, University of Alberta

Date and Time: Friday March 1st, 2:00-3:00pm, ES4001

The 2023 wildfire season in Canada was the worst ever recorded, with
over 18 million hectares burned. The unprecedented level of fire activity
in 2023 precipitated mass evacuations across the country, extensive
structure losses, and multiple firefighter fatalities. It also quickly
overwhelmed fire response resources, leading to imports of thousands of
international firefighting personnel. Observations of wildfires last year, and
in years prior, are telling us something important about fire risk and the
way we analyze it, but are we listening? In this presentation, I will delve
into the evolution of some widely used fire risk modelling methods and
ask: “Are they working?” and “What are the alternatives?” Through this
process, several logical fallacies and decision traps will be highlighted as
well as opportunities for rethinking how we conceptualize risk.

Speaker Bio: Jen Beverly is an Associate Professor at the University of Alberta. She holds MSc and PhD degrees from the Faculty of Forestry, University of Toronto, and an Honours BES from the University of Waterloo. Her research team currently focuses on various aspects of wildfire risk assessment – with the overarching goal of providing decision makers with tools to ensure social and ecological systems thrive in fire-prone environments. She is a fire behaviour specialist, a former helitack crew leader (Ontario Fire Ranger), and a former federal government research scientist.