The SPARx project is funded by the UC Multicampus-National Lab Collaborative Research And Training 2020 Awards under the project: Transforming Prescribed Fire Practices for California led by Prof. Tirtha Banerjee, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UC Irvine. It involves collaboration among UC Irvine (lead institute), UC Berkeley, UC Riverside, UC ANR, and Los Alamos National Laboratory. 

We are building an interdisciplinary team and initiating a transformative effort to address the risk of California’s catastrophic megafires by conducting and disseminating research to support an increase in the pace and scale of prescribed (Rx) fire in the region. In other parts of the United States, prescribed fire is a primary tool for managing fuels and thus fire risk, but in California the use of prescribed fire and the benefits of such use are far from meeting their full potential. Our goal is to transform Rx fire practices through new collaborative research efforts across the University of California (UC) system that will lower the current barriers to the widespread application of Rx fire. The team has expertise in fire and smoke modeling and information technology (IT)-enabled decision support and will develop new models and technologies, apply them in the field during planned Rx burns, and transfer knowledge and skills through UC extension programs and student training. The proposed research will seed the creation of an innovation hub that will serve as a center for knowledge exchange and technology transfer, training a new generation and ushering in a new era of fire use in California (CA).