Mike Flannigan

@mikeflannigan.bsky.social

2.3K followers 1K following 220 posts

fire guy, weather guy, researcher, professor and research chair.
Thompson Rivers University

Videos

Environmental science 66%

Geography 18%

Posts Replies Media Videos

Reposted by Mike Flannigan

International Journal of Wildland Fire @ijwildlandfire.bsky.social · 5d

🔥New in IJWF:

Ohlson et al. map fine dead fuel moisture across a Colorado mixed-conifer forest using 1-h fuel samples from 80 plots. They reveal strong fine-scale spatiotemporal variability shaped by canopy, understory, and aspect.

🔗 doi.org/10.1071/WF25...

#IJWildlandFire

(a) Post-treatment forest structure and two people sampling fuels from the 0 to 1.7 m and 2.8 to 4.5 m plots within
the clustered design. (b) A plot placed between two whiskers to mark the distance intervals and the strings stretched
across the PVC sampling frame to denote the randomly generated 20 × 20 cm subplot for collecting the plot’s
observation. Black markings on the PVC sampling frame are at 20 cm intervals to create the grid of 36 subplots. (c)
Two people collecting a dead fine fuel sample into a pre-labeled and pre-weighed polyethylene resealable bag.

The observation period was organized into three phases: early summer (Julian day 138–189), mid-summer (Julian day
192–236) and late summer (Julian day 243–287) for the following plots. The dashed lines on the axes depicting FMC indicate
the commonly used 30% moisture of extinction threshold for dead understory forest fuels ( Rothermel et al. 1986). (a)
Empirical cumulative density functions of the three distributions (early summer, mid-summer, late summer) of observed
fuel moisture content. (b) Kernel density plots of the three intraseasonal period distributions. (c) Boxplots colored by
intraseasonal period depicting the distribution of FMC on each observation day. The box indicates the inter-quartile range
(25th to 75th percentiles). The mid-band indicates the median, and the whiskers indicate points within 1.5 times the interquartile range. Points outside the whiskers are outliers. Note: to visualize the data more effectively, the axes depicting
FMC (%) were visually constrained to 150%, preserving all values while focusing on a more relevant range.

The smoothed, marginal effects of understory cover, canopy cover, heat load index and precipitation on FMC
transformed to show the fitted GAM function on the response scale. The x axis shows values of the covariate, the rug
indicates the distribution of covariate observations, and the y axis shows expected FMC values. The gray bands
correspond to the 95% confidence interval and represent model uncertainty in the transformed (response scale)
estimate. Though negative values are not possible in FMC or under a Gamma distribution, the confidence interval
below 0 in the precipitation plot is an artifact of transformation and reflects wide uncertainty.

Reposted by Mike Flannigan, Ken Caldeira, Richard Waite

Zack Labe @zacklabe.com · 9d

Temperatures have warmed across the contiguous United States over the last five decades or so during the months of December through February (a rapidly warming season)...

Check out @climatecentral.org's winter package for more information and graphics: www.climatecentral.org/climate-matt... ❄️🥵

Map showing the change in average winter temperature in degrees Fahrenheit by county for the contiguous United States from 1970 to 2025. Nearly all areas are warming.

Reposted by Mike Flannigan

Kyle Brittain @badweatherkyle.bsky.social · 12d

I contributed an article to the Canada Wildfire newsletter!

Check out the Fall 2025 issue here:

www.canadawildfire.org/newsletter

Mike Flannigan @mikeflannigan.bsky.social · 17d

Graph from a recent paper on widespread & intense surface air temperature is scary for many reasons including fire. Higher temperatures & more extreme heat will lead to more intense fires in many parts of the world largely due to drier fuels driven by increased vpd.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

$This figure shows that the fraction of Earth’s surface area with extremely hot days has increased since 1950. The red curves show the annual mean of relative fractional global surface area with ERA5 daily mean surface air temperatures exceeding 30° and 40°C: where Aref refers to the area over the period of 1951 to 1980 and was estimated to be 7,565,377 km2 for days hotter than 30°C and 4636 km2 for days hotter than 40°C. The blue curves mark the corresponding relative fractional global surface area with daily mean surface air temperatures of −30° and −40°C.$

Reposted by Katharine Hayhoe, Mike Flannigan

BC Wildfire Weekly - Wildfires + More @bcwildfirewkly.bsky.social · 18d

“Northwestern Ontario bore brunt of province's wildfire season with evacuations, outages and a record blaze” www.cbc.ca/news/canada/... - CBC Thunder Bay

#DeerLakeFirstNation #ONFire #Ontario #Wildfires

Canada had one of its worst wildfire seasons ever. Here's how one key region is already planning ahead | CBC News

The province's 2025 wildfire season officially ended Friday, with northwestern Ontario experiencing the most activity. The region, with the largest wildfire on record, faced several community evacuati...

www.cbc.ca

Reposted by Katharine Hayhoe, Mike Flannigan, James E. Wood

juli g pausas @jgpausas.bsky.social · 19d

Two PhD student positions on Fire Resilience of Amazon Forests (Application deadline Nov 26), Wageningen
@masha-vandersande.bsky.social @w-u-r.bsky.social

www.wur.nl/nl/vacature/...

Reposted by Monica G. Turner, Mike Flannigan, Paul Caplat , and 3 more Monica G. Turner, Mike Flannigan, Paul Caplat, Juan Antonio Hernández‐Agüero, Christina Dollinger, Benjamin Wildermuth

Ana Stritih @anastritih.bsky.social · 20d

Do you like forests and computer models? 🌳🧑‍💻
Within the Future Forests excellence cluster, we are hiring two modellers for 7 year (!) positions here in Freiburg.

A scientific coordinator role: uni-freiburg.de/en/job/00004...

And and a scientific programmer role: uni-freiburg.de/en/job/00004...

Mike Flannigan @mikeflannigan.bsky.social · 24d

NPL5 in Canada means - Wildland fire activity is significant within one or more jurisdictions. Firefighters and equipment in every jurisdiction in Canada are in use & international help has been requested. Graph of the # of NPL5 days by year in Canada. There are not enough resources in recent years

figure describes the national preparedness levels for wildfire in Canada ranging from level 1 to 5 (highest)

graph showing the number of National Preparedness Level 5 days in Canada by year. Significant increases in recent year

Mike Flannigan @mikeflannigan.bsky.social · 25d

New report out today - theBritish Columbia Disaster and Climate Risk and Resilience Assessment (DCRRA). This assessment includes natural and climate-related hazards in BC—such as floods, extreme heat, wildfires and earthquakes

climatereadybc.gov.bc.ca/pages/dcrra

DCRRA

This page is part of the ClimateReadyBC site. The British Columbia Disaster and Climate Risk and Resilience Assessment (DCRRA) and the B.C. Hazard Insights Tool provide key information on different ha...

climatereadybc.gov.bc.ca

Mike Flannigan @mikeflannigan.bsky.social · 27d

New Perspective - Canada’s landscape fires spreading into uncharted territory
Canada clearly needs to do more. More to prevent & mitigate wildfires, more to increase our initial response capacity and capability to protect communities & critical infrastructure.
iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

Graph showing number of fires in Canada and area burned in Canada and BC (green bars) by year for 1959-2025

Mike Flannigan @mikeflannigan.bsky.social · 28d

Groups in Canada are calling on the federal government to take more action to prevent and combat wildfires
www.ctvnews.ca/video/2025/1...

CTV National News: Calls for action to protect Canadians against wildfires

Groups are calling on the federal government to take more action to prevent and combat wildfires. Andrew Johnson reports.

www.ctvnews.ca

Mike Flannigan @mikeflannigan.bsky.social · 28d

10th International Conference on Forest Fire Research &
19th International Wildland Fire Safety Summit Website is now live. Just over a year away.

events.adai.pt/en/10th-icffr

10th International Conference on Forest Fire Research

events.adai.pt

Reposted by Mike Flannigan

Evan Frost @wildwoods.bsky.social · Oct 22

"Canada's landscape fires are spreading into uncharted territory." scholar.google.com/scholar_url?...

scholar.google.com

Mike Flannigan @mikeflannigan.bsky.social · Oct 20

Jasper 2024 Wildfire Complex: Documentation, Reconstruction and Analysis
Following a highly destructive 2024 wildfire in Jasper, Alberta, a study was completed to describe the behaviour and contributing environmental factors associated with this event.
ostrnrcan-dostrncan.canada.ca/entities/pub...

NRCan Open S&T Repository (OSTR) / Dépôt ouvert des sciences et technologie (DOST) de RNCan

The NRCan Open S&T Repository (OSTR) provides free and open access to science publication and research funded by the Canadian government.

ostrnrcan-dostrncan.canada.ca

Reposted by Mike Flannigan

Kyle Brittain @badweatherkyle.bsky.social · Oct 18

Why have Canada's wildfire seasons suddenly gotten worse in recent years?

Stay tuned for a blog post tomorrow!

Reposted by Mike Flannigan

Ian Hall @ianhall.bsky.social · Oct 16

The climate crisis is fuelling extreme fires across the planet

In the past year, an area of land over 3.7 M km², larger than India, was burned worldwide. >100 M people were affected by these fires, and homes and infrastructure worth US$215 billion were at risk.

theconversation.com/the-climate-...

The climate crisis is fuelling extreme fires across the planet

It’s clear – climate change is supercharging the world’s wildfires in unpredictable and devastating ways.

theconversation.com

Reposted by John T. Abatzoglou

Mike Flannigan @mikeflannigan.bsky.social · Oct 9

🔥 New fire paper out - Fire regime changes in Canada: an update. Overall, the big-picture trends remain consistent: annual area burned, the annual number and size of large fires are still increasing, but the total number of fires for all sizes continue to decline.
cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.1139/...

Fire regime changes in Canada: an update

Given the recent rise in extreme fires, we present an update to a previous Canadian wildfire trend analysis (1959-2015) with nine additional years of data (2016-2024), an improved area burned dataset,...

cdnsciencepub.com

Reposted by Mike Flannigan

Mike Waddington 🇨🇦 @peatofmind.bsky.social · Oct 7

For over 15 years the McMaster Ecohydro Lab has awarded the #NobelPeatPrize to the authors of the best peatland or peat paper of the year.

It’s that time of year again where we review papers and finalize a list of nominees.

Do you have a fave paper for 2025 you would like us to consider?

Reposted by Katharine Hayhoe, Scott C. Doney, Brian J. Enquist , and 20 more Katharine Hayhoe, Scott C. Doney, Brian J. Enquist, Marco Festa‐Bianchet, Ben Bond‐Lamberty, Mike Flannigan, Robin J. Pakeman, Patrick A. Jansen, Neil Pederson, Brian J. Harvey, Jussi T. Eronen, Hisham Zerriffi, Tommaso Jucker, Sabina Burrascano, Carly D. Ziter, Darío Martin‐Benito, Susanne Lachmuth, Shan Kothari, Joan Dudney, Ellie M. Goud, Varina E. Crisfield, Katherine Sinacore, Rafael Candido‐Ribeiro

Sally Aitken 🇨🇦 @sallyaitken.bsky.social · Sep 25

We are searching for a Forest Ecophysiologist (tenure track Assistant or Associate Professor) to join the Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, University of British Columbia Faculty of Forestry. Please share! Details are here: ubc.wd10.myworkdayjobs.com/ubcfacultyjobs

Reposted by Mike Flannigan

BC Wildfire Weekly - Wildfires + More @bcwildfirewkly.bsky.social · Sep 25

“Wildfire smoke contains PM2.5 - a type of air pollution - that is known to trigger inflammation in the body. It can exacerbate conditions like asthma and heart disease...” www.bbc.com/news/article... - BBC News

#cdnpoli #uspoli #wildfires

US and Canada fight over who's to blame for wildfires

US officials have blamed Canada for not doing enough to stop its wildfire smoke from wafting south. Climate experts say it’s not so simple.

www.bbc.com

Mike Flannigan @mikeflannigan.bsky.social · Sep 24

Some active fires in northern Alberta today. GOES-West geocolor loop below. Also, active fires in the Northwest Territories today (not shown in this loop).

Reposted by Mike Flannigan

Adam Voiland @avoiland.bsky.social · Sep 17

Wildfires affect not just the air we breathe, but the water we drink. earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/15479...

Mike Flannigan @mikeflannigan.bsky.social · Sep 16

🔥New paper - Comparative Analysis of Ensemble and Deterministic Models for Fire Weather Index (FWI) System Forecasting.
Ensemble forecasts for fire management decision-making include probabilistic fire growth modelling, long-term strategic planning etc.

journals.ametsoc.org/view/journal...

Graph showing Continuous Ranked Probability Score (CRPS) and Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and lead time for the Fire Weather Index for ensembles and deterministic forecast

Mike Flannigan @mikeflannigan.bsky.social · Sep 13

UBC-O just posted two full-time term lecturer positions in fire ecology as part of the Canadian Prescribed Fire Training Program

The positions will handle fire ecology courses and prescribed fire training.

Applications are open until October 31, 2025.

ubc.wd10.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/ubcfac...

Lecturer - Fire Ecology

Academic Job Category Faculty Bargaining Job Title Lecturer - Fire Ecology Department UBCO | Faculty | Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences | Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science (Kevin Hanna...

ubc.wd10.myworkdayjobs.com

Mike Flannigan @mikeflannigan.bsky.social · Sep 13

The 2025 BC fire season area burned (872k ha) has moved into 5th place with the recent fire activity. This means that the top 6 fire seasons have been since 2017 (records go back to 1950) Area burned-red bars (2017-2025 graph below) far exceeds the green bars (1950-2016). Climate change in action.

Graph of annual area burned in BC 1950-2025

Map showing locations and status of fires in BC
https://wildfiresituation.nrs.gov.bc.ca/map

Mike Flannigan @mikeflannigan.bsky.social · Sep 11

Clark's Nutcracker play a pivotal role in the regeneration of Whitebark Pine

Reposted by Mike Flannigan

Julia Levin @jflevin.bsky.social · Sep 10

3 out of 4 Canadians are concerned about the climate crisis, up 15-points since October 2024, according to Abacus

abacusdata.ca/public-conce...

Mike Flannigan @mikeflannigan.bsky.social · Sep 10

New study in Nature on the Long-range PM2.5 pollution and health impacts from the 2023 Canadian wildfires

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

'We find that 354 million (277–421 million) people in North America and Europe were exposed to daily PM2.5 air pollution caused by Canadian wildfires in 2023'

figure 3 from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09482-1
–c, Daily PM2.5 exposure in Canada (a), from fire sources in different source regions, anthropogenic sources and other sources (for example, biogenic, dust and sea salt). d–f, Cumulative fire-related PM2.5 exposures in Canada (d), from different source regions.

Reposted by Mike Flannigan

The New York Times @nytimes.com · Sep 9

Breaking News: The U.S. will provide wildfire fighters with masks, reversing a ban after a New York Times series on smoke and firefighters’ health.

U.S. Wildfire Fighters to Mask Up After Decades-Long Ban on Smoke Protections

The Forest Service is reversing course as it faces growing pressure over workers falling ill with cancer and lung disease. The move is part of a flurry of changes to aid firefighters.

nyti.ms

Reposted by Mike Flannigan

Kyle Brittain @badweatherkyle.bsky.social · Sep 9

Discussing the current wildfire situation in Canada, with guest Mike Flannigan - wildfire expert and professor at Thompson Rivers University.

Watch here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwOW...

@mikeflannigan.bsky.social

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