Fighting fire with science: UAH and NASA forge groundbreaking fire management collaboration in South Alabama

March 25, 2025 - HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (MAR. 25, 2025) – Researchers from The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), part of The University of Alabama System, have partnered with the Alabama Forestry Commission and NASA's FireSense initiative to study prescribed burns in the Geneva National Forest in South Alabama. The collaboration aims to improve fire management practices through the use of advanced technologies and data collection methods.

During the prescribed burn scheduled for March 23 - 28, UAH researchers are deploying low-cost soil moisture and temperature sensors to examine the role soil moisture plays in shaping fire behavior and recovery processes. These sensors, developed in collaboration with the UAH Atmospheric Science Department and the Alabama State Climate Office, are expected to provide critical insights into how soil moisture influences fire dynamics.

The UAH team, led by research scientist Ryan Wade and Alabama's Associate State Climatologist Dr. Lee Ellenburg from the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at UAH, is working alongside the Alabama Forestry Commission and NASA to enhance the understanding of fire behavior and its ecological impacts. These controlled burns serve as a valuable research tool, offering critical data that will refine strategies for wildfire prevention, response and recovery.

"Our goal is to gather real-time data to improve fire management and enhance safety," Wade explains. "By leveraging advanced weather and soil monitoring tools, we can predict fire behavior more accurately, allowing land and forest managers to better leverage prescribed burning to reduce the risk of uncontrolled wildfires."

NASA's FireSense initiative plays a key role in advancing wildfire management through innovations in fire fuel mapping, detection systems, post-fire impact assessments and air quality forecasting. By integrating UAH's soil moisture sensors with remote sensing technology and NASA's satellite data, the team is gaining deeper insights into fire behavior and its environmental effects.

"We're focusing on understanding the role of soil moisture before, during and after a fire," Ellenburg notes. "This information is vital for assessing drought severity, understanding how moisture impacts fire intensity and evaluating how fire alters the soil's ability to absorb water."

Prescribed burns are crucial for managing vegetation and preventing unmanageable wildfires in the Southeast, particularly in pine-dominant forests. The effort seeks to enhance fire forecasting methods and ensure that prescribed burns are safe, controlled and effective in maintaining long-term forest health, improving both ecological outcomes and public safety.