Joshua trees burn during the York Fire in the Mojave National Preserve in July. Photo by Ty O’Neil, The Associated Press

By NINA Raffio
USC

• Outlawing controlled burns didn’t work. As demand for prescribed fire increases across California, experts explore traditional and modern methods for building wildfire resilience in a burning world.

What can Native American knowledge, and now AI, teach us about fire? University of Southern California (USC) experts weigh in.

For centuries, Native American tribes used cultural and controlled burns to nurture healthy ecosystems. These deliberate, low-intensity fires helped maintain ecological balance in the region by reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfires, promoting biodiversity and supporting the growth of native plant species and food sources.

Modern fire suppression policies and urban development disrupted these natural processes. The accumulation of overgrown underbrush — fire fuel — and the devastating impacts of climate change are making wildfires more frequent and severe across the West and around the world.

Policymakers are finally learning what tribes have long understood: Fire can be good. And evidence comes from an unlikely source — artificial intelligence (AI).

Fighting fire with fire: Using ‘good’ fires to prevent bad ones

“The recognition that controlled burning is a useful tool is rising, as it should. Indigenous and community-based practices, ordinances, and rules about fire mitigation, hardscaping, brush and other fuel removal, building material prohibition – these are all good things in landscapes rendered vulnerable to wildfire,” Bill Deverell said, an expert in the environmental history of the American West.

“It is those practices, which are likely done best at the community and even neighborhood level, that will be case studies of effective responses to and after fire.”

Deverell is a professor of history, spatial sciences and environmental studies at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. He also directs the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West.

Contact: deverell@usc.edu

California course-corrects, reaffirms Native American right to fire management practices

“Tribes throughout the United States, including in California, had controlled fire management regimes for centuries. Sometimes the goals have been to prevent worse wildfires, sometimes to manage the landscape, and sometimes for other cultural purposes, Robin Craig said, an expert in environmental law at the USC Gould School of Law.

Last year, the state of California adopted a strategic plan for wildfire resilience with the goal of expanding prescribed burns to 400,000 acres annually by 2025 and enhancing tribal engagement.

“The descendants of European settlers are slowly learning that complete wildfire suppression eventually makes things worse—something that many tribes in California already knew. So, this is a great example of contemporary law actively—finally—incorporating traditional Indigenous knowledge into modern resilience.”

Contact: rcraig@law.usc.edu

AI can help meet the growing demand for controlled burns

Yolanda Gil, research professor of computer science and spatial sciences at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, is harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to help firefighters strategically plan controlled burns and manage unexpected blazes.

“Preventive controlled fires are key to avoiding mega-fires that quickly get out of control and produce significant damage. The challenge is that designing a controlled fire in a way that is safe and does not harm the environment is very difficult, and something that only very few expert fire modelers can do. This does not scale given the growing demand for preventive fires,” she said.

“We are using AI techniques to capture sophisticated knowledge that experts use to build models that predict how fire evolves. Our AI systems can advise non-experts on using science-grade models for designing controlled fires. This would enable scaling our preventive measures for wildfires by orders of magnitude.”

Contact: gil@isi.edu

How modeling, enhancing community preparedness aid rapid threat response

Costas Synolakis, an expert in natural hazard mitigation, uses modeling to simulate fast-moving threats like wildfires and tsunamis.

“With expert systems, you can have fire spread models simulate the evolution of fires and simultaneously start simulations of evacuations. This kind of simulation would identify bottlenecks and prepare shelters for evacuees,” Synolakis said, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.

Synolakis emphasized the importance of fire preparedness for communities located in high-risk areas with limited escape routes, highlighting the crucial role of community involvement.

“At the local level, it’s imperative for communities to actively participate in decision-making processes, discussing available options and resource allocation.”

Contact: costas@usc.edu

Wildfires’ far-reaching impacts underscore the profound effects of climate change

“Wildfires generate impacts not only within the immediate burning area but also have far-reaching consequences. For instance, the smoke from the 2020 California wildfires spread all the way to Europe. This year, smoke originating from Canadian wildfires blanketed parts of the Eastern United States,” Rebecca Miller said, a wildfire expert and postdoctoral scholar at the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West.

“This reality sheds light on the profound effects of such disasters and the undeniable influence of climate change. The takeaway I hope people grasp is that these calamities are no longer isolated incidents happening somewhere distant; they’re poised to affect your daily life, even if you’re not directly fleeing the flames.”

Contact: rkmiller@usc.edu