Fires are not going away. In fact, they're escalating, and we need to become more proactive about how we deal with them. But how?
The team at WIFIRE is betting that supercomputing AI and prescribed burns can prevent the next 'megafire.'
The idea is to use low-intensity fire to clean the environment, so when a high-intensity fire comes, it's not going to have as destructive of an effect.
Just 200 Wollemi pines exist in a remote gorge, prompting a critical operation to protect them from bushfires
WOLLEMI PINE
Wollemia nobilis
The Wollemi pine can grow to more than 130 feet tall, lush but with a trunk that is covered with soft, brown nodules that have been described as looking like both “chocolate crackles” and “rabbit feces.” It is an “exceedingly long-lived” tree, according to the Australian government; the oldest known Wollemi fossil is 90 million years old, but scientists think the species has existed since the Jurassic period, some 200 million years ago.
Once widespread across Australia, Wollemi pines reached their peak abundance some 34 to 65 million years ago. As Australia drifted northward and its climate cooled and dried, the trees began a steady decline; today, just 200 Wollemi pines grow on the northwestern outskirts of Sydney, in a deep, remote gorge bounded by steep sandstone cliffs.
When the Gospers Mountain Fire, a “mega-blaze” that has been burning since October, began encroaching on the trees, air tankers dropped fire retardant onto the threatened area, and specialist firefighters were winched down to the site from helicopters to set up an irrigation system that would increase moisture on the ground. When the flames got close, firefighters were lowered into the area once again to operate the irrigation system. Helicopters bucketed water onto the edge of the fire in the hope of reducing its impact on the pines.
The fire eventually reached the Wollemi groves, and for days, smoke was so thick that the team could not tell if its operation had worked. When the haze cleared, experts found that some of the trees were charred, and two had died, but on the whole, the species had survived.
