Graduation Date
Spring 2025
Document Type
Thesis
Program
Master of Science degree with a major in Natural Resources, option Forestry, Watershed, & Wildland Sciences
Committee Chair Name
Rosemary Sherriff
Committee Chair Affiliation
Cal Poly Humboldt Faculty or Staff
Second Committee Member Name
Stacy Drury
Second Committee Member Affiliation
Community Member or Outside Professional
Third Committee Member Name
Jeffrey Kane
Third Committee Member Affiliation
Cal Poly Humboldt Faculty or Staff
Keywords
Wildfire, Southern Humboldt, Wildland-urban interface, Fuel models, Fire behavior, Fire behavior modeling, Flammap, Farsite, Supervised classification, Remote sensing, Vegetation mapping
Subject Categories
Natural Resources
Abstract
Strategic placement of fuel treatments is critical for mitigating wildfire risk and reducing potential structure losses in wildland-urban interface (WUI) communities. As wildfire activity accelerates across the western United States, the need to identify high-impact fuel treatment locations grows increasingly urgent. Concurrently, housing development in the WUI is expanding, intensifying the exposure of homes and infrastructure to wildfire threats. In response, many communities are looking to mitigate the likelihood and severity of losses during wildfire events. The success of these efforts depends, in part, on robust data to support strategic placement of effective treatments that reduce fuel availability.
This study used operational fire behavior modeling tools to compare the effectiveness of WUI protection strategies focused on homes versus the broader landscape surrounding communities under extreme fire weather conditions. The first phase of analysis involved modeling the 2020 Glass Fire using three different fuel model datasets to assess how these inputs influence modeled fire behavior. Building on these findings, a custom, locally calibrated fuel map was developed for a separate study area in northern California. This map and a standard LANDFIRE dataset were used to simulate hypothetical wildfire scenarios and compare treatment outcomes. The results clarify the tradeoffs inherent in spatially distinct approaches: defensible space treatments can reduce structure-level exposure, while landscape-scale treatments are more effective at limiting large-scale fire spread. In the context of increasingly hazardous wildfire conditions, this study offers guidance for planners and fire-prone communities in northern California and beyond and reinforces the importance of data-driven fuels management in protecting WUI communities.
Citation Style
Chicago Manual of Style 17th Edition
Recommended Citation
Cavalli, Julia I., "An evaluation of fuel model accuracy and multi-scale mitigation strategies in the wildland-urban interface of southern Humboldt County" (2025). Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects. 2272.
https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/etd/2272