NH032-0013
Pyregence: Free and open access to the next generation of wildfire risk models for electricity grid resiliency
Tuesday, 15 December 2020
Poster
David Saah, University of San Francisco, Environmental Science, San Francisco, CA, United States, Christopher Lautenberger, Reax Engineering, Inc, Berkeley, CA, United States, Scott Stephens, Middletown, CT, United States, Owen M Doherty, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States and Leroy Westerling, UC Merced, Merced, United States
Abstract:
Wildfire threats in California are ever increasing with substantial changes in fire behaviour driven by higher fuel loads, more frequent extreme weather events and continued human development in the wildland urban interface. Organizations across the State need better operational and strategic information to understand changing wildfire risks and implement effective risk transfer measures. Access to this critical information is blocked by multiple barriers including fragmented silos of science and technology and black box software often behind paywalls.
The Pyregence Consortium aims to provide access to a free and open source platform that will serve wildfire hazard and risk forecast information based on the next generation of wildfire models. The Consortium will use best in practice science and technology to forecast high spatial resolution wildfire conditions for electric utilities along near- and long-term time horizons. Wildfire scenario analyses will be produced to inform future wildfire risk and California’s 5th Climate Change Assessment. The ‘open source’ collaboration brings together initiatives and leading researchers from 18 institutions representing industry, academia, and government in an effort to transform how wildfire mitigation and adaptation measures are implemented across California.
