Julie Korak

Ongoing CU research explores impacts, solutions after Marshall Fire

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Jan 2023 17:23:55 +0000

Ongoing CU research explores impacts, solutions after Marshall Fire Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 01/02/2023 - 10:23

On Dec. 30, 2021, a quick-moving, grass-fueled wildfire in suburban Boulder County became the costliest wildfire in Colorado history. It burned 6,000 acres, destroyed more than 1,000 homes and damaged thousands of others.

Hundreds of CU Boulder students, faculty and staff were among the thousands who fled parts of unincorporated Boulder County and the towns of Louisville and Superior that day—and the fire damaged or destroyed more than 150 homes of CU Boulder community members.

The Marshall Fire also spurred researchers—many of them personally affected by the fire—to pivot and apply their expertise to the aftermath. One year later, dozens of ongoing research projects continue to explore the science behind what happened that day, the widespread impacts on people, pets and the environment and how we can mitigate future catastrophes amid a changing climate.

Researchers Julie Korak and Cresten Mansfeldt collect surface water samples on the Coal Creek waterway.

Here's a glimpse at what they’ve learned so far, and what’s in the works.

Assessing invisible damage

For homeowners and renters in the path of the flames who did not lose their homes, a sense of relief following the fire was quickly followed by one of dread. Was it safe to go home to buildings affected by heat and smoke or covered in ash and soot?

“This brought up many questions: What chemicals are people exposed to, how safe is it to be back home and how should the homes be cleaned?” said Joost de Gouw, professor of chemistry and a Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) fellow. “Boulder County is home to the largest concentration of air quality scientists probably in the world, and many of them had directly or indirectly been affected. So it was only natural that this community sprang into action.”

De Gouw has since led a research team of engineers, social scientists and chemists across campus, and collaborated with scientists from CU Boulder, CIRES and NOAA to examine this invisible damage by measuring the quality of indoor air in affected homes and buildings.

The researchers found that shortly after the Marshall Fire, many pollutants remained at high levels inside fire-affected homes. But by early February, levels had decreased and were similar to those inside homes that weren’t affected. The researchers also tested ways in which residents could protect themselves from harmful chemicals in their damaged homes. They found that portable air filters with activated carbon provide excellent—but temporary—mitigation of indoor pollutants. The team has also reviewed the results of professional remediation efforts inside affected homes, which residents report have had varying degrees of success.

De Gouw and his fellow scientists are currently pouring over their data to look for evidence of lingering pollutants that might have been derived from plastics, car tires, furniture, carpets, roofing material and other materials that burned in the fire. They’ve communicated their initial findings to Boulder County Public Health and to the general public through community meetings and social media, and will publish a portion of their official results in 2023.

Earth, water and fire

The soil and water on people’s property, in playgrounds and in public parks has also been a subject of concern since the Marshall Fire tore through these towns. Not only did homes and vehicles burn, but so did items like fabric, plastics, electronics and batteries. Their destruction likely created chemical compounds that then found their way into local soil and water systems.

Noah Fierer, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, and Eve-Lyn Hinckley, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, started collecting soil samples as part of the Marshall Fire soils project, quantifying the potential for soil contamination after the fire. Almost one year later, the researchers, both CIRES fellows, are now finishing up their analyses. They are in the process of contacting homeowners with results from their individual properties and will publish their findings in the coming year.

Julie Korak and Cresten Mansfeldt, assistant professors of environmental engineering, partnered with colleagues across campus, local community organizations and municipalities to collect surface water samples from the Coal Creek waterway shortly after the fire. Operating out of the back of their cars, Korak and Mansfeldt started sampling on Jan. 2, 2022, with the help of student volunteers. The work has since expanded to monitor the response of bugs and algae that live in these waters, and involve more CU Boulder faculty and students, as well as high school students.

Collaboration with local municipal governments and watershed groups like the Keep it Clean Partnership has also led to the development and release of a dashboard detailing all of the results from the campaign, which the team will update through 2023.

“From the first selection of sites to the prioritization and interpretation of monitored targets, the CU Boulder team has benefited and relied on the expertise, care and community pride of Boulder County,” said Mansfeldt.

A map depicting the locations of the surface water samples collected from the Coal Creek waterway shortly after the Marshall Fire.

Quickly converging research

The speed, coordination and sensitivity of much of this scientific response is in large part due to CONVERGE, a National Science Foundation funded collaboration established in 2018 to identify, train and support disaster researchers. Led by sociology Professor Lori Peek, this invisible infrastructure connecting the disaster research community is housed at the longstanding CU Boulder-based Natural Hazards Center, which Peek also directs.

After the Marshall Fire, CONVERGE quickly mobilized to organize several virtual forums with researchers, emergency responders, journalists, community members and representatives from municipal governments. These forums—the first of which had more than 400 registrants—jump-started the process of identifying pressing research needs, potential redundancies and ways to appropriately connect with affected communities in the immediate aftermath of the fire.

The first virtual forum also led to the establishment of the Marshall Fire Unified Research Survey, which involves dozens of researchers working together to reduce the research burden on affected communities while learning from their experiences.

“In my 20 years of being a researcher, I have never seen this kind of coordinated research effort,” Peek said.

Elise Buisson records data on grassland plants in France with a colleague

By connecting researchers to knowledge and data, CONVERGE draws on lessons that disaster researchers have learned from earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados and other calamities over decades and allows them to quickly apply those lessons in new and different ways, she said. This is critical for research in the wake of wildfires. The impact of these disasters on people is rapidly increasing, and because of climate change, the Marshall Fire may only be the start of more suburban fires this century.

“This is not something we’re done dealing with,” Peek said. “The convergence mindset and orientation to research is crucial because it asks us to consider: What are we going to do to solve that problem?”

Managing grasslands

The Marshall Fire ranks in the top 15 most destructive wildfire events in the western United States—only one of two grassland fires in that list. As the Front Range is dominated by grasslands, researchers are seeking address these ecosystems to reduce future fire catastrophes.

“Grassland fire mitigation is a new challenge for Colorado. Unfortunately, we can’t just take what we do in forests and apply that practice in grasslands,” said Katharine Suding, professor of distinction in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR).

Suding is working with the city of Boulder and Boulder County to develop ways to reduce grassland fire risk without sacrificing important benefits of grasslands, including biodiversity and soil carbon storage.

One option is virtual fencing, in which computers draw virtual fence lines, and cattle wear a GPS collar that keeps them within those invisible lines. The method targets grazing toward high-risk areas alongside neighborhoods and high fuel spots, such as ditches with overgrown grasses. As grasslands have evolved with grazing, said Suding, this approach should reduce fuels above ground but still spur growth belowground and maintain biodiversity.

Other projects include “landscape rewetting,” in which water is retained within grasslands to keep the vegetation greener and soils wetter for longer.

Engineering a better neighborhood

The drone used by CU engineers and researchers to create a detailed map of the Marshall Fire destruction.

The color of burned concrete can show researchers how hot the fire got. Photo courtesy of Brad Wham.

The effort is part of an initiative funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) called Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance (GEER), which deploys researchers to disaster sites around the world. The researchers released a report halfway through 2022 detailing their preliminary findings from the weeks and months immediately following the fire, and are continuing to analyze the data.

Other CU Boulder engineering faculty and graduate students are also in the middle of various projects, collecting data and conducting preliminary analyses on the complexities of decision-making when rebuilding post-fire.

Matthew Morris, teaching professor and fellow in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, lost his house in Superior in the fire and has helped manage its design and reconstruction in the Sagamore neighborhood.

He describes this year as “an absolute grind for so many people, in so many ways.” But, he added, “people are finally getting some hope now that homes are being built in every neighborhood.”

Local stories in sharper focus

The Marshall Fire tragedy offered up an opportunity for seven journalism students in the College of Media, Communication and Information (CMCI) to hone their skills and serve the community by reporting on the aftermath of the fire.

In an immersive, newsroom-style journalism course created by teaching assistant professor of journalism Hillary Rosner and Boulder Reporting Lab publisher Stacy Feldman, the students teamed up with KUNC investigative reporter Robyn Vincent to report on experiences of survivors, the scope of loss and displacement and barriers in the recovery process.

Rosner—also a science journalist and assistant director of the Center for Environmental Journalism at CU Boulder—noted in one of the stories in the series that this reporting has brought the impacts of the Marshall Fire into sharper focus.

“Their work reflected how the Marshall Fire had functioned for the past year as a sort of living lab for the vast research community that exists in Boulder. The graduate-level journalism course aimed to explore the health impacts of the fire through the lens of this research,” wrote Rosner.

Read their stories here.

Recording community stories

In Boulder County, another team of researchers is striving to document a different kind of data before it disappears entirely: our stories.

In early 2022, the Louisville Historical Museum launched the Marshall Fire Story Project to collect and preserve stories of how the fire impacted the lives of people across the county. Kathryn Goldfarb, assistant professor of anthropology at CU Boulder, supports the effort alongside Jason Hogstad, volunteer coordinator and historian at the museum. The team now includes CU Boulder students Emily Reynolds and Lucas Rozell.

For months, the group has listened to stories about evacuating homes, lost pets and personal artwork that can never be recovered—but also the support residents received from their communities.

“We have a bag of stuff we bring with us to story sessions that includes release forms and a box of tissues,” Goldfarb said.

The Marshall Fire Story Project is funded by the Office of Outreach and Engagement at CU Boulder and is supported by the Center for Documentary and Ethnographic Media.

So far, the team is on track to record audio and video stories from around 35 people. The museum will archive the stories for use by community members, policy makers and researchers. Many survivors of the fire will spend years rebuilding their homes and lives, Hogstad said.

“Grief takes a long time,” he said. “This moment has marked these places and people forever.”

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Environmental Engineering Spring 2022 Award Winners

Anonymous — Mon, 16 May 2022 18:02:48 +0000

Environmental Engineering Spring 2022 Award Winners Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 05/16/2022 - 12:02

Jeff Zehnder

The University of Colorado Boulder Environmental Engineering Program is recognizing eight students and one faculty member for outstanding achievements for Spring 2022. Congratulations to the individuals below for their accomplishments at CU Boulder!

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What the Marshall Fire can teach us about future climate catastrophes

Anonymous — Tue, 25 Jan 2022 17:19:25 +0000

What the Marshall Fire can teach us about future climate catastrophes Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 01/25/2022 - 10:19

Nearly one month after the Marshall Fire became the most destructive and one of the most unique wildfires in Colorado history, CU Boulder researchers from across campus—many of them personally affected by the fire—have pivoted and applied their expertise to the aftermath, hoping to learn from a tragedy in their own backyard and help prepare the country for the next “climate fire.”

“What makes this fire really unique is that it happened in a community that is full of researchers that study this exact topic,” said Natasha Stavros, director of the Earth Lab Analytics Hub at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at CU Boulder. “We are going to have measurements unlike anywhere else.”

What makes this fire really unique is that it happened in a community that is full of researchers that study this exact topic. We are going to have measurements unlike anywhere else.”
–Natasha Stavros

As a grass-fueled December wildfire in a crowded suburb, the fire was quite different than the state’s massive forest fires of 2020, resulting in many novel impacts on the environment and human health. More than a dozen research projects are already underway, investigating everything from its impact on air and water quality, to the fire speeds that drove it, and how changes in infrastructure and insurance could limit damage from future fires like it. Researchers hope the findings can help inform homeowners, local governments and communities today and shape policies for tomorrow.

“In between all of us, there is so much expertise to address the causes and the impacts of this fire,” said Joost de Gouw, CIRES fellow and professor of chemistry. “If we come together to produce and publish research, we can really change the future of how we think about wildfire.”

Recipe for a winter wildfire

Three ingredients contribute to fire on the landscape: fuel, climate and ignition, said Stavros.

Due to higher-than-normal snowpack levels in late winter of 2021, a wet spring and a rainier than normal July, grasses grew abundantly in the Front Range throughout the year. By the time December rolled around, fuel accumulation was up 60% to 70% compared with a normal year. These plentiful dry grasses, combined with a 3-foot snow deficit and fierce Chinook winds, set the perfect stage that day for a spark to spiral out of control.

Avery Hatch, a CU Boulder doctoral student in environmental engineering, monitors indoor air quality in a spared home after the Marshall wildfire. (Photo by Casey A. Cass/CU Boulder)

Environmental engineering faculty Julie Korak and Cresten Mansfeldt collect water samples. (Credit: Fernando Rosario-Ortiz)

This abundant fuel would not have existed without increases in precipitation and snowmelt in the first half of 2021, followed by a drastic lack of moisture in the second half of the year—both of which point to climate as the driving cause.

“It’s the first time in my career I have felt comfortable saying this is a climate fire,” said Stavros.

Climate change will continue to have a hand in the future of wildfire, increasing the length and intensity of fire seasons as well as changing how, when and where water is distributed, said Stavros.

In addition to analyzing the impacts of fuel growth, researchers in the Earth Lab are also examining the role of another major factor in the Marshall Fiire: speed.

The Marshall Fire only burned 6,000 acres, less than half the size of Colorado’s second most destructive fire in state history, the Black Forest Fire. Yet it tore through twice as much infrastructure, accounting for 39% of all homes lost to wildfire disasters in the state since 1999, according to Maxwell Cook, doctoral student in the Department of Geography and the Earth Lab.

The fire also now ranks in the top 15 most destructive wildfire events in the western United States, only one of two grassland fires in that list.

Cook is currently working with Jennifer Balch, director of the Earth Lab, to conduct research on the factors which make a fire most likely to burn down homes.

So far, their data shows speed matters most. This may seem obvious, but Cook, Balch and their colleagues have developed new data that now allows them to track and quantify that impact.

“The speed of the fire is also really what makes it difficult for emergency management personnel to respond, to get evacuation orders out in time,” said Cook. “Management strategies that are aimed at reducing the speed of wildfires could be critically important for communities.”

This could include creating fire/fuel breaks around suburban neighborhoods and removing vegetation next to homes—strategies already broadly in use in foothills communities around Colorado. Early detection systems and quick emergency responses are also key, especially in densely populated neighborhoods.

The Earth Lab is also involved in helping develop better maps of where homes are at risk of wildfire across the West, which can help communities and insurances companies better plan for and mitigate that risk.

“We may need to think hard about what we define as the wildland urban interface (WUI). There's a lot of flammable landscape and development out there that's maybe not accounted for,” said Cook. “Building smarter, both in terms of where we build and how we build, that's going to be a big thing moving forward.”

Clearing the air

Three weeks after the fire, homeowners and renters who did not lose their residences still face an important unknown: Is it safe to go home?

Buildings were inundated with smoke, full of unhealthy compounds created as the blaze burned paint, fried refrigerators and melted metals in nearby homes. These chemicals, absorbed by surviving structures like a sponge, now pose a previously unquantified problem.

Air quality scientists from CU Boulder, CIRES and NOAA quickly compiled an online resource about the impacts of post-fire smoke cleanup in homes. Led by de Gouw, they next installed instruments in several surviving homes to measure levels of harmful gases and understand the lingering effects of smoke on indoor air quality. Another team of scientists have also been driving through affected neighborhoods with a mobile laboratory to measure what the remains of buildings emit into the immediate atmosphere.

An interdisciplinary team including engineers, social scientists and chemists from across campus will continue to collect data indoors over the coming months to inform residents and local governments and learn more about lingering human health concerns that wildfires in urban areas can present.

Downstream effects

Meanwhile, Fernando Rosario-Ortiz and his colleagues are studying water.

For years, the associate dean for faculty advancement at the College of Engineering and his colleagues in the Environmental Engineering Program have worked to understand the implications of wildfire on water. But they usually study forests.

“Combusting homes is a whole different ball game,” said Rosario-Ortiz.

It’s not just wood that’s burning in a suburban fire: It’s homes, vehicles and all the stuff in them: fabric, plastics, electronics, batteries, you name it. Those remains and the compounds created can find their way into local water systems. When a fire is quickly followed by rain or snow, as was the case with the Marshall Fire, concerns about contamination are even higher, he said.

Julie Korak and Cresten Mansfeldt, assistant professors of environmental engineering, have partnered with colleagues across campus, local community organizations and municipalities, to collect surface water samples in the area, test for concerning chemicals and address questions of watershed safety posed by residents. In the next month or so, the team will have initial results to share with stakeholders.

“Everyone here takes their water very seriously,” said Mansfeldt. “This work provides a first fingerprint of how a fire like this impacts a community, and how we can assist recovery.”

Building back better

Now that we know a fire like this is possible, the big question the Front Range faces is: How do we keep this from happening again?

A first step in answering: To get a comprehensive, birds-eye view of the damage.

Read more

Fire resources

To that end, Brad Wham, assistant research professor in the Center for Infrastructure, Energy and Space Testing, will join a national team of colleagues this week to fly drones over the burn sites before cleanup begins, gathering valuable clues about what happened that day. The work is part of a larger collaborative research effort, supported by the Resilient Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity IRT (RISE) within the College of Engineering and Applied Science, formed in the wake of the fire to connect environmental engineers, social scientists, first responders, and policy experts conducting work on natural disasters.

And once rebuilding begins?

“It is entirely practical to build back better,” said Keith Porter, adjoint professor of civil, architecture and environmental engineering.

Porter explains that using fire resistant materials to build a home doesn’t only make it less likely to burn, but they’re a relatively cheap upgrade (less than $10,000 compared to replacing a home worth $600,000) and due to their longevity, can lead to immense savings over the life of the home.

The International Wildland Urban Interface Code, for example—adopted in parts of Boulder County—requires that fire resistant materials be used in new construction. Porter points out, however, that unless cities and counties mandate this kind of fire code, homebuilders aren’t required to swap wood shingles for a non-combustible roof or to replace vinyl siding with stucco in new developments. When rebuilding, insurance companies may mandate that a house be replaced “like for like,” potentially inhibiting homeowners from replacing flammable building materials with fire resistant ones—even if it could save insurance companies money to let people do so, according to Porter.

As affected residents navigate their insurance policies, find temporary housing in a tight market and try to stay healthy during the omicron surge, fighting for fire resistant materials may not be able to be a top priority. This is why, Porter points out, the real power to protect public safety is not on the individual, but in the hands of local officials.

“Everybody else is affected by somebody else's house burning,” said Porter. “Both in an economic sense and in a moral sense, we really are all in this together.”

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