The Design-A-Thon brings together UC San Diego students from all disciplines and experience levels in a pitch-style competition to apply the Design Thinking process to proactive solutions to end destructive wildfires.

Year after year, the United States experiences larger, more frequent, and more destructive wildfires as a result of a changing global climate.

Much of what is known about planned fire comes from a burn manager’s memory. “It takes years to get that kind of experience, If things are changing, like invasive species or climate, or if you’re a new manager, you need help.”

Scientists are using supercomputing and artificial intelligence to figure out the best way to fight the growing threat of wildfires in California.

Images of raging wildfires have become commonplace in California. According to fire experts, it is no longer a question of if there will be a massive forest fire but when and where it will ignite.

Runaway wildfires are always a possibility in the fall, when Southern California is raked by stiff Santa Ana winds that blow across the region’s ubiquitous chaparral, the most flammable mix of brush land vegetation in the country. But this fire season may bring something truly hellacious.

The WIFIRE Lab, founded by Chief Data Science Officer Ilkay Altintas at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), is using the power of data science and supercomputing to provide officials with real-time fire models that help strategize the best approach to containment.