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Our Purpose is to deliver
practical solutions for living
well with wildfire

MIsSION
Providing evidenced-based empirical research to enhance prevention and mitigation efforts that reduce the risks and negative impacts of wildfire on communities and forests
RESEARCH themes
mitigation and prevention

Reduction of probability and severity of unwanted wildfires

Wildfire response

Improving suppression success, pre-suppression tactics, firefighter safety, and maximizing efficiencies

Post-fire response and recovery

Post-fire recovery and rebuilding to increase forest health and resilience

National wildfire data collection

Strategy and implementation

RESEARCH sites

The FPInnovations Wildfire Operations Group conducts research that spans many provinces and territories. To create consistent and recurring opportunities for success, FPInnovations is a partner at several research sites – two in the Northwest Territories and one in Alberta.

The research sites allow for multi-organizational collaboration with execution on many projects simultaneously. The research sites allow for prescribed burns to test different vegetative treatments and their response while burning under varying weather conditions. This allows for the expansion of knowledge surrounding community protection, firefighter safety, aviation, and technology. Furthermore, having access to areas that can be burned in 95th percentile fire weather conditions allow researchers to study conditions that are challenging for wildfire suppression efforts.

To learn more about these research sites through a virtual tour.

(Alberta link coming soon!)

RESEARCH LIBRARY

Want to see where our project ideas come from?

Got your own project idea?

Proposals must be received in by September in order to be considered for the next field season. If you are seeking to submit outside this time period please contact: Kelsey.Winter@fpinnovations.ca

MEET OUR RESEARCH TEAM

Our team of researchers combines several years of wildfire operational experience with strong research and management skills. The unique capabilities and personalities of our team members allow us to be innovative and adaptable, and our small size allows us to be responsive to members’ research needs.

Strategic planning, team building, project management, communications and engagement.

Greg Baxter
Senior Researcher

Firefighter safety, fire behaviour analysis and community protection.

Rex Hsieh
Senior Researcher

Wildfire detection, equipment and service evaluation, project management, information systems and databases.

Steve Hvenegaard
Senior Researcher

Fuel treatment efficacy, fire behavior analysis and community protection.

Razim Refai
Senior Researcher

Aviation in wildfire operations, wildland fire chemicals, thermography, equipment testing and evaluation.

Brandon MacKinnon
Researcher

Fuel load, fire behavior, technology evaluations for wildfire operations, and utilizing RPAS for research and operations.

Andrew Stack
Researcher

Operational firefighting, wildfire case studies specialist, operational fire behavior analysis and wildfire fuel treatment research.

Greg Griffiths
Researcher

Fuel treatment efficacy, operational fire fighting, data management, RPAS and drone technologies for wildfire research.

Robin Tremblay
Researcher

Wildfire suppression and responses, risk management and operations, fire road planning, legal documentation and wildfire crew leader experience.

Funding Partners

For more information about our group, any of our projects, or our website, please contact us: