UCI seeks big bucks to study Southern California wildfires

The Orange County Register

September 19th, 2008

By Gary Robbins.

A firefighter looks through a back burn in Hamilton Oaks, October 2007.
Image by Michael Goulding The Orange County Register

UC Irvine will ask NASA for roughly $900,000 to study how wildfires affect the ecosystems and water resources of Southern California — a region that has suffered many catastrophic fires, including last October’s Santiago blaze in Orange County.

“Climate change could make Southern California drier, which could lead to more wildifres,” says Xiaogang Gao, a researcher in UCI’s Center for Hydrometeorology and Remote Sensing. “The fires could destroy vegetation that helps prevent erosion when there’s heavy rain.”“.

UCI is deeply involved in studying rainfall patterns around the world, largely by using data from satellites. Soroosh Sorooshian, the center’s director, says he hopes that scientists will eventually be able to have high resolution, real-time monitoring of precipitation that would be useful in preventing and coping with floods.

At the moment, the bigger local concern is a lack of rain. As we reported last week, Orange County is in a moderate drought that could “persist or intensify” through November, according to the U.S. Climate Prediction Center.