Ernesto Alvarado C.

Research Associate Professor
Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Laboratory
School of Environmental and Forest Sciences
University of Washington
Seattle, Washington
alvarado@uw.edu
UW (206) 616-6920 PWFSL (206) 732-7842
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My expertise is on wildfire sciences, quantitative fire ecology modeling and tropical ecology. I work on fire behavior, fire sciences, ecological modeling, tropical ecology, first-order fire effects. Most of tis research is funded by the USFS Fire and Environmental Research Applications (FERA) Team at the Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Laboratory in Seattle. Other research sponsors are the US Agency for International Development, the NASA Space Grant Undergraduate Research Program, the USDA FS International Programs, and National Science Foundation.

I participate on studies in several of the FERA projects throughout the Pacific Northwest and the Transect of the Americas. The studies that the team is currently involved are oriented to model the effects of fire disturbances on global vegetation modeling, and to understand the role of fire on ecosystem management.

I have accumulated over 27 years of experience working on wildfires. My experience extends from my early post-college years practicing operational fire suppression, prescribed fires and fire management to graduate degrees in Silviculture, Forest Management and Wildfire Sciences. A combination of operational experience and an advanced specialization in fire sciences provides a solid and broad capacity to approach from different perspectives the problems faced by research and teaching wildfire sciences at a high level. I have conducted wildfire research in collaboration with individual scientists and domestic and international research groups conducting research in fire sciences, air quality, atmospheric chemistry, combustion engineering, ecology and policy-making.

As a founding member of the FAO Fire Management Actions Alliance, I am commited to promote the goals of the Fire Management Actions Alliance is to stimulate improved fire management and reduce damage from fire worldwide. The objectives of the Alliance are:
* review and update the Fire Management Voluntary Guidelines;
* encourage stakeholders at all levels to adopt and use the Guidelines;
* review experiences from applying the Guidelines;
* strengthen international cooperation in fire management.

Some of the research projects in which I participate and have participated over the years are the following:

Megacity Initiative: Local and Global Research Observations (MILAGRO). I am part of the team in charge of the biomass burning componnet of the MILAGRO project.

Biomass combustion, emissions, and first order effect from slash burning in the Amazon forest.

Fuel and fire hazard characterization for natural protected areas and biosphere reserves in Mexico.

Combustion, emissions, and vegetation effects in low-impact harvested forest in tropical Bolivia.

FROSTFIRE: A landscape experimental fire in the boreal forest of Central Alaska.

Mid-scale Fire Behavior and Smoke Assessment for the Columbia River Basin
Predicting the Effect of Fire on Vegetation in North American Biomes
Study of the Fire History, Fuel and Stand Dynamics of the Coniferous Forests of the Mexican Sierra Madre
Model and Prediction of Distribution of Ecosystems in Mexico under Current and Future Climate Scenarios
Role of Fire in the Stability and Sustainability of the Ecotone Between the Cerrado and Amazonian Forest Ecosystems under Current and Future Climate Change Conditions

 

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