Science
Closing the gap between wildfire modeling and real-world response
Key Points
Canada's 2023 wildfire season burned more than 18.5 million hectares (45.7 million acres), an area larger than Greece. As fires like these grow more frequent and unpredictable, a team of UBC Okanagan researchers has taken stock of two decades of work applying operations research to the problem and found a field that has matured quickly but still struggles to get its best ideas out of journals and into the field.
Canada's 2023 wildfire season burned more than 18.5 million hectares (45.7 million acres), an area larger than Greece. As fires like these grow more frequent and unpredictable, a team of UBC Okanagan researchers has taken stock of two decades of work applying operations research to the problem and found a field that has matured quickly but still struggles to get its best ideas out of journals and into the field.