Michael R. Gallagher

My research uses novel remote sensing techniques and direct field measurements of forest materials, weather, and active wildland fire to explore questions relating to the fundamentals of wildland fire behavior and ecological effects.  By employing the strategy of coproduction, the complementary inclusion of managers and scientists through each phase of the research process, this research takes on a dynamic, interdisciplinary form through involvement of land management agency, non-profit, and domestic and international research partners.  Based at the Silas Little Experimental Forest, my work aims to develop knowledge to help both fire managers and research scientists by answering the following questions:

1) How do factors of forest vegetation, weather conditions, and combustion processes vary and interact, physically, at multiple spatial and temporal scales to drive dynamics in fire behavior and variation in fire effects?
2) What are the seasonal constraints and opportunities for burn severity and fire effects in eastern mixed forests?
3) How are forest structures and morphologies important for driving fluid dynamics within in the fire environment?
4) How can new remote sensing approaches, like LiDAR, photogrammetry, and multispectral sensors be used to quantify fire behavior, forest fuel loads, and fire effects?
5) Are there opportunities for reducing tick populations, as a disease vector to humans and animals, in the Northeast with prescribed fire.

Research on wildland fires is fascinating and critically important given the changing climatic and forest conditions and expansion of human populations into forested areas of our era.  Much of the work that the team I work with conducts is facilitated by opportunities of prescribed burning, to reduce hazardous fuels and promote forest health.  To see what it is actually like inside of an active prescribed fire, check out this interactive video taken at one of our research burns with NIST's 360 degree fireproof video camera (link: http://www.firesciencenorthatlantic.org/blog/2019/3/25/prescribed-fire-research-burn-with-360-degree-video-from-the-nj-pinelands).