PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Wildfire resilience initiative launches with $3.7 million in seed funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

Based at Cary Institute, the collaborative brings together scientists and stewards to co-create solutions to the fire crisis

Wildfire resilience initiative launches with $3.7 million in seed funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
2024-06-18
(Press-News.org) The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has awarded $3.7 million to kickstart the Western Fire & Forest Resilience Collaborative, led by Winslow Hansen, a forest ecologist at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. Funds are enabling the formation of an interdisciplinary collaborative that will advance science-based management solutions to the growing wildfire crisis.

In the Western US, climate change and a legacy of fire suppression have led to larger, more severe, and more frequent fires — with devastating consequences for people, natural resources, and the climate. By dramatically speeding up the pathway from scientific discovery to action, the Collaborative will provide a clearer understanding of the future of forests and fire, and pilot new fire management strategies and policies. 

“Funding comes at a critical time,” said Hansen. “Our window of opportunity to address the wildfire crisis in the Western US is closing. With the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s support, we can catalyze the science that’s needed to inform wildfire resilience and adaptation efforts.”

The problem is personal for Hansen, who grew up in Montana’s fire country and has conducted research in Western forests for more than a decade. He’ll be coordinating a network of collaborators from wide-ranging scientific disciplines — leaders in the fields of climatology, fire ecology, environmental health, and more. The list includes experts from UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, Stanford, University of Washington, and University of Colorado Boulder.  

“Fire is dramatically impacted by climate. Very rarely do we have a network of collaborators working on fire that actually includes climatologists. That is going to allow us to do work that would not be possible otherwise,” notes Park Williams, a hydroclimatologist at UCLA and 2023 MacArthur Fellow. 

The Collaborative is also unique in that it brings together scientists with fire managers and other stakeholders to understand the science needed to inform decision-making around fire. “When we combine everyone's tool sets, the hope is that we can make a really serious dent in understanding how to live with wildfire on the landscape in a more sustainable way,” said Anna Trugman, a forest ecologist at UC Santa Barbara.

Collaborative scientists will use fieldwork, remote sensing via satellites, and state-of-the-art modeling to answer questions guided by decision makers in the fire community. These include: How are forests and fires changing? What are the long-term consequences of today’s management decisions? And what innovative management strategies and adaptation efforts are needed to respond to future changes?

The team will also work to define and track damaging versus beneficial fire, track and project forest carbon storage, understand how fire shapes freshwater resources, and predict the movement and health impacts of smoke in rural and urban communities.

“This century’s fires have been outpacing our ability and tools to manage them. While we expect increased wildfire incidence and severity across Western North America in the next few decades, we have much more to learn about where, when, and how these fires will burn as conditions change,” said Genny Biggs, program director for the Moore Foundation’s Wildfire Resilience Initiative. 

“Dr. Hansen is leading a brilliant and interdisciplinary team. Their Collaboration will deepen our understanding and help inform and test management decisions that reduce community and ecosystem vulnerability to severe wildfire, and increase our ability to coexist with beneficial fire in the century to come.”

Hansen comments, “The US government is investing billions to reduce fire severity using treatments like thinning and prescribed burns. But this will only cover a small percentage of forest. Thinking strategically about where and how to place these treatments is vital to maximizing return on investment, minimizing damaging fires, maintaining resilient forests, and building public support.” 

The Collaborative’s predictive models will make it possible to test novel and scaled-up management strategies, helping to ensure that practitioners can leverage the best science to invest in practices that will shift the balance of wildfire from devastating to sustainable. 

Watch a brief overview video of the Western Fire & Forest Resilience Collaborative. For more information, visit: www.westernfireforest.org.

xx

Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies is an independent nonprofit center for environmental research. Since 1983, our scientists have been investigating the complex interactions that govern the natural world and the impacts of climate change on these systems. Our findings lead to more effective resource management, policy actions, and environmental literacy. Staff are global experts in the ecology of: cities, disease, forests, and freshwater.

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation advances scientific discovery, environmental conservation, and the special character of the San Francisco Bay Area. Visit moore.org and follow @MooreFound. 

 

 

END

[Attachments] See images for this press release:
Wildfire resilience initiative launches with $3.7 million in seed funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Wildfire resilience initiative launches with $3.7 million in seed funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation 2 Wildfire resilience initiative launches with $3.7 million in seed funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation 3

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

New NOvA results add to mystery of neutrinos

New NOvA results add to mystery of neutrinos
2024-06-18
The international NOvA collaboration presented new results at the Neutrino 2024 conference in Milan, Italy, on June 17. The collaboration doubled their neutrino data since their previous release four years ago, including adding a new low-energy sample of electron neutrinos. The new results are consistent with previous NOvA results, but with improved precision. The data favor the “normal” ordering of neutrino masses more strongly than before, but ambiguity remains around the neutrino’s oscillation properties. The latest NOvA data provide a very precise measurement ...

Gastroenterologists generally trust and accept use of AI medical tools in clinics and hospitals, finds NTU Singapore study

2024-06-18
Artificial intelligence (AI) has permeated many aspects of medicine, with promises of  accurate diagnoses, better management decisions, and improved outcomes for both patients and the healthcare system. However, to successfully implement AI technology in clinical practice, trust and acceptance among healthcare providers to use such tools is crucial. Now, using the treatment of digestive diseases as a case study, an international study led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has found that doctors in the gastroenterology practice generally trust and accept AI medical tools. Through ...

State cannabis legalization and trends in cannabis-related disorders in older adults

2024-06-18
About The Study: Rates of cannabis-related disorder encounters increased from 2017 through 2022 among Medicare-insured older adults. This study observed the highest rates in states or territories that legalized adult and medical use of cannabis. The results also suggest higher average annual increases in states or territories that legalized medical cannabis. Corresponding author: To contact the corresponding author, Silvia Perez-Vilar, Ph.D., Pharm.D., email silvia.perezvilar@fda.hhs.gov To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media ...

Availability of medications for opioid use disorder in community mental health facilities

2024-06-18
About The Study: In this study of 450 community outpatient mental health treatment facilities in 20 high-burden states, approximately one-third offered medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD). These results suggest that further study is needed to report MOUD uptake, either through increased prescribing at all clinics or through effective referral models. Corresponding author: To contact the corresponding author, Jonathan Cantor, Ph.D., email jcantor@rand.org. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link ...

Variation in postoperative outcomes across federally designated hospital star ratings

2024-06-18
About The Study: Although Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) hospital star rating was associated with postoperative mortality, serious complications, and readmissions, there was wide variation in surgical outcomes within each star rating group. These findings highlight the limitations of the CMS hospital star rating system as a measure of surgical quality and should be a call for continued improvement of publicly reported hospital grade measures.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Adrian Diaz, M.D., M.P.H., email adrian.diaz@osumc.edu. To access the embargoed ...

Sepsis patients could get the right treatment faster, based on their genes

2024-06-18
Sepsis patients could be treated based on their immune system’s response to infection, not their symptoms. New research uncovers how different people respond to sepsis based on their genetic makeup, which could help identify who would benefit from certain treatments and lead to the development of targeted therapies.   The team, from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the University of Oxford, and collaborators, built on their previous work that identified different subgroups of patients with sepsis. They aimed to understand more about why sepsis response varies between patients and the different underlying immune response pathways. The new study, published today (18 June) in Cell Genomics, ...

Odors are encoded in rings in the brain of migratory locusts

Odors are encoded in rings in the brain of migratory locusts
2024-06-18
The migratory locust Locusta migratoria is an economically important crop pest that is said to have come to Egypt in the Old Testament as the eighth of the ten biblical plagues, "to devour all that plants that grow". The migratory locust is rarely found in Europe, but in Africa and Asia it not only causes millions of dollars’ worth of damage but also has a deadly impact on local people, threatening their food and their very existence. The locusts occur in two phases: as solitary animals and in swarms. The insects are most feared when they ...

New global research aims to improve survival rates for pancreatic cancer patients

2024-06-18
A new study published today in JAMA Network Open by an international cohort of researchers provides the latest data on the effectiveness of treating pancreatic cancer patients with chemotherapy (with or without radiation therapy) before surgery to remove a tumor. The study focuses specifically on pancreatic adenocarcinoma patients. The research found that after treatment and surgery, nearly five percent of patients had no detectable cancer cells left in the area where the tumor was, achieving a pathological complete response (pCR). “PCR means that the cancer has responded extremely well to the treatment, leaving no ...

Medication treatment for opioid use disorder offered at only a third of outpatient mental health facilities

2024-06-18
Only a third of outpatient community mental health treatment facilities in 20 states with the highest opioid related overdose deaths report offering medication treatment for opioid use disorders, suggesting efforts may be needed to strengthen such services, according to a new RAND study.   Among the 450 clinics surveyed, factors that increased the likelihood that clinics would provide medication for opioid use disorders included being a certified behavioral health clinic and providing integrated mental and substance use disorder treatment.   Researchers found that most clinics that did not offer medication treatment said they referred patients to other clinics for ...

Salk scientist Jesse Dixon named 2024 Pew Biomedical Scholar

Salk scientist Jesse Dixon named 2024 Pew Biomedical Scholar
2024-06-18
LA JOLLA (June 18, 2024)—Salk Institute Assistant Professor Jesse Dixon has been named a 2024 Pew Biomedical Scholar by The Pew Charitable Trusts. This honor provides funding to early-career investigators who demonstrate outstanding promise in science toward advancing human health. Dixon and the other 21 awardees will each receive $300,000 over four years to support their research. “Through his development and use of leading-edge genetic tools, Jesse has already made a major impact on how we study diseases such ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Study unexpectedly finds living in rural, rather than urban environments in first five years of life could be a risk factor for developing type 1 diabetes

Editorial urges deeper focus on heart-lung interactions in pulmonary vascular disease

Five University of Tennessee faculty receive Fulbright Awards

5 advances to protect water sources, availability

OU Scholar awarded Fulbright for Soviet cinema research

Brain might become target of new type 1 diabetes treatments

‘Shore Wars:’ New research aims to resolve coastal conflict between oysters and mangroves, aiding restoration efforts

Why do symptoms linger in some people after an infection? A conversation on post-acute infection syndromes

Study reveals hidden drivers of asthma flare-ups in children

Physicists decode mysterious membrane behavior

New insights about brain receptor may pave way for next-gen mental health drugs

Melanoma ‘sat-nav’ discovery could help curb metastasis

When immune commanders misfire: new insights into rheumatoid arthritis inflammation

SFU researchers develop a new tool that brings blender-like lighting control to any photograph

Pups in tow, Yellowstone-area wolves trek long distances to stay near prey

AI breakthrough unlocks 'new' materials to replace lithium-ion batteries

Making molecules make sense: A regional explanation method reveals structure–property relationships

Partisan hostility, not just policy, drives U.S. protests

The Journal of Nuclear Medicine Ahead-of-Print Tip Sheet: August 1, 2025

Young human blood serum factors show potential to rejuvenate skin through bone marrow

Large language models reshape the future of task planning

Narrower coverage of MS drugs tied to higher relapse risk

Researchers harness AI-powered protein design to enhance T-cell based immunotherapies

Smartphone engagement during school hours among US youths

Online reviews of health care facilities

MS may begin far earlier than previously thought

New AI tool learns to read medical images with far less data

Announcing XPRIZE Healthspan as Tier 5 Sponsor of ARDD 2025

Announcing Immortal Dragons as Tier 4 Sponsor of ARDD 2025

Reporting guideline for chatbot health advice studies

[Press-News.org] Wildfire resilience initiative launches with $3.7 million in seed funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
Based at Cary Institute, the collaborative brings together scientists and stewards to co-create solutions to the fire crisis