A preventive treatment developed by Stanford researchers could greatly reduce the incidence and severity of wildfires.
A preventive treatment developed by Stanford researchers could greatly reduce the incidence and severity of wildfires. The approach, outlined Sept. 30 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, involves an environmentally benign gel-like fluid that helps common wildland fire retardants last longer on vegetation.
Applied to ignition-prone areas, these materials retain their ability to prevent fires throughout the peak fire season, even after weathering that would sweep away conventional fire retardants. By stopping fires from starting, such treatments can be more effective and less expensive than current firefighting methods.
“This has the potential to make wildland firefighting much more proactive, rather than reactive,” said Eric Appel, the study’s senior author and an assistant professor of materials science and engineering in the Stanford School of Engineering. “What we do now is monitor wildfire-prone areas and wait with bated breath for fires to start, then rush to put them out.”
Read more at Stanford University
Image: Under the supervision of CalFire, the researchers performed test burns on a grassy roadside area near San Luis Obispo, California, to gauge the effect of a fire-retarding hydrogel. The images above show untreated (left) and treated (right) plots shortly after fire ignition. (Image credit: Eric Appel)
