Banner image: Engineers survey the foundations of a home burned in the Marshall Fire. (Credit: Casey Cass/抖阴旅行射 Boulder)
The drone whirs to life on a driveway in the Spanish Hills neighborhood of Boulder County. Its four spinning motors lift it to nearly 200 feet above the ground. Below, the cul-de-sac comes into view, revealing the stone chimneys and blackened foundations that dot the hillside鈥攚hat remains of many of the houses in this neighborhood after flames swept through on Dec. 30 and into the morning of Dec. 31 during what would become known as the Marshall Fire.
Brad Wham trudges through the snow to join about a dozen other researchers who have gathered to watch the flight this morning. They鈥檙e wearing hard hats and neon safety vests. As an engineer at 抖阴旅行射 Boulder, Wham studies how water pipelines and other 鈥渓ifelines鈥� can maintain their functionality during natural hazards, such as听earthquakes and wildfires. He also lives in Louisville, Colorado, and had to evacuate his own home on that same day.听
鈥淚鈥檝e deployed to Japan and New Zealand to study disasters very shortly after they occurred,鈥� said Wham, an assistant research professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering (CEAE). 鈥淚t has been a different experience to have them happen in my hometown.鈥澨�
The Marshall Fire, which spread throughout much of Boulder County including the towns of Superior and Louisville, became the most destructive fire in Colorado鈥檚 history. More than 1,000 homes were lost, and approximately 6,000 acres burned. One person remains missing, while another was confirmed dead.
In coordination with local officials, Wham and his colleagues from Oregon State and Purdue universities have been surveying the damage since first-responders extinguished the flames. The effort is part of an听initiative funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF)听called (GEER), which deploys researchers to disaster sites around the world. The team hopes to better understand the disaster from a uniquely engineering perspective: Why did some houses burn, for example, while neighboring homes survived? How did critical services like water, gas and electricity hold up during one of the worst disasters in Boulder County鈥檚 history?
Time is of the essence. Soon, bulldozers and excavators will crawl through the impacted areas to begin the slow process of rebuilding鈥攁nd much of that information will be gone forever.
鈥淚 think what we鈥檙e doing here is going to be beneficial in the future, especially with other communities that are going to have fires,鈥� said Jessica Ramos, a senior at 抖阴旅行射 Boulder who鈥檚 working on Wham鈥檚 research team.
The Marshall Fire swept through this cul-de-sac in the Spanish Hills neighborhood. (Credit: Casey Cass/抖阴旅行射 Boulder)
More information
For 抖阴旅行射 Boulder community members experiencing physical, financial or emotional impacts of the Marshall Fire, 抖阴旅行射 Boulder fire resources are available.
CONVERGE is hosting a series of virtual forums to discuss research on the Marshall Fire. Tune in for the next forum on Thursday, Feb. 17, from 2 to 3听p.m. mountain time.
Heat map
Erica Fischer, a structural engineering professor at Oregon State University who leads the GEER team along with Wham, joined the researchers in Spanish Hills on this windy morning in January.听
In many ways, the neighborhood shows why people have flocked to Boulder County in recent decades. Its rolling hills offer a startling view of the 抖阴旅行射 Boulder campus and the Flatirons beyond. But, Fischer notes, wildfires have been an inescapable part of these kinds of beautiful landscapes since long before humans settled here鈥攁nd, as the climate warms in Colorado, they鈥檙e likely to grow worse.听
鈥淚 would love to have this view,鈥� she says, standing on a snowy hillside. 鈥淭his is incredible, but beautiful scenery is created out of disaster. That鈥檚 how mountains are formed. That鈥檚 how lush forests are created. Understanding that is important.鈥�
She and her colleagues are hoping to help people to live more safely within this dynamic environment.
They鈥檙e taking a multi-pronged approach to the research. They鈥檝e utilized laser sensors to create 3D models of homes and retaining structures burned in the fire. They鈥檝e also deployed flying vehicles like the quadcopter drones鈥攐n loan from the at the University of Washington.听
This kind of interdisciplinary reconnaissance related to a wildfire has never been done before by GEER,鈥� said Shideh Dashti, an associate professor in CEAE who leads an interdisciplinary research effort at 抖阴旅行射 Boulder called Resilient Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity. 鈥淭he solutions we come up with need to be holistic.鈥�
As one part of that fast-moving effort, the group is working to recreate a heat map of the path the fire took through towns such as Superior and Louisville.听
Fischer explained, as concrete heats up, it changes color, turning pinker the warmer it becomes. Students from Oregon and 抖阴旅行射 Boulder are inspecting the foundations of homes in the region, using custom-made color swatches to try to estimate how hot the flames got鈥攇iving them a better sense of what happened inside those homes as they burned.听
Members of the GEER team watch a drone take off from the Spanish Hills neighborhood. (Credit: Casey Cass/抖阴旅行射 Boulder)
Team members survey damage from the Marshall Fire. (Credit: Casey Cass/抖阴旅行射 Boulder)
The team plans to publish its initial findings through a publicly-available report in March.
Ultimately, the researchers hope to bring together lessons learned from the Marshall Fire for other communities across the West. Fischer noted that recommendations like the and the have long laid out how homeowners can safeguard homes from wildfires. Building a gravel skirt around your house, for example, can help to buffer it from flames. But many of those recommendations are expensive to put into place, she said, and no one knows which ones give you the biggest bang for your buck.
鈥淚n 2018, there was a big hailstorm in Boulder County. A lot of people replaced their roofs. Did certain roofing materials help more than others? Did some siding materials help more than others?鈥� Fischer said. 鈥淚f homeowners have one dollar for rebuilding, where should they put it?鈥�
Urgent response
Wham understands the urgency of the effort. At 2 p.m. on Dec. 30, he packed a bag and left his house in Louisville as flames licked the ground just a couple hundred yards away. His house made it through the night, but many others nearby didn鈥檛.
鈥淭he fire destroyed structures all around us, to the north, the west, the south,鈥� he said from Spanish Hills, a mile and a half from his home. 鈥淏ut the response is the same as if it were in another community. We want to help in any way we can. We want to support the local institutions that are making decisions to get people back to their homes and recover from this as safely and as efficiently as possible.鈥�
As part of that, Wham and his colleagues are also striving to understand how humans responded to this unprecedented disaster. The team has interviewed emergency management personnel and other local leaders to learn more about the decisions they made during and after the fire鈥攈ow did residents evacuate neighborhoods, and how did cities and the county prioritize restoring vital services? In Louisville, for example, the local water treatment plant lost power, natural gas and communication services during the fire, severely limiting its capacity to get water to firefighters. Local officials trucked in natural gas from the surrounding area to restore the facility鈥檚 critical water pressure demands.
Lori Peek is a sociologist who directs the at 抖阴旅行射 Boulder and an associated , which coordinates research on natural disasters. She has a lot of experience collecting perishable data in听the immediate aftermath of events from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina and the 2010 BP oil spill.
鈥淥ne of the keys to doing ethical disaster research is making sure that work is grounded in the local cultural context,鈥� Peek said. 鈥淭his multi-disciplinary team of engineers had those deep ties and has the opportunity to do grounded research that makes a scientific contribution but is also immediately useful to local leaders.鈥�
Wham, for his part, has already taken one big lesson away from the Marshall Fire.
鈥淧eople from all over the state and even from outside the state came in to fight the fires and help restore water service and power systems,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hose are really important relationships and connections that support the recovery process.鈥�
He hopes that same wider community will help residents of the impacted neighborhoods as they begin the slow process of rebuilding their homes and their lives.
Other participants in the GEER study include 抖阴旅行射 Boulder professors Abbie听Liel and Amy Javernick-Will of CEAE and Andrew Whelton of Purdue. Students听Nicolas Berty, Jacob Klingaman and听Hailey-Rae Rose of 抖阴旅行射 Boulder and Amy Metz and Dae Kun Kang of Oregon State are also aiding the effort.
As a global leader in climate, environmental and energy research, the University of Colorado Boulder is partnering with United Nations Human Rights to co-host the Right Here,听Right Now Global Climate Summit in fall 2022.听
