How wildfires spread is a mystery Oregon engineers are solving

A rooster might be the last thing you’d expect to hear when there’s a scientific experiment underway, but at David Blunck’s farm near Albany, Oregon, the soundtrack is positively pastoral.

His roosters crow. His dog barks. Birds fill the air with their song.

And members of his church honk their greetings as they drive by on the country road by his house.

In a small clearing next to a freshly-planted field of vegetables tended to by Blunck’s kids, the Oregon State University engineer and his team are setting out frames of white fire-proof cloth. They’re spaced on the ground in growing semicircles, like lawn chairs at an outdoor concert.

“For how much of a tree or shrub burns, what’s the number of firebrands that’ll be released? That’s the big value we’re trying to back out,” he explains.

The cloth is there to catch those firebrands — or flying embers — when they land.

Once wildfires start, one of the ways they spread is through firebrands that blow into unburned areas. Despite their importance in spreading fires, relatively little is known about how many firebrands different kinds of vegetation generate during wildfires.

“If you want to understand how to control (wildfire) or contain it or prevent it, it’s helpful to know how it spreads,” he says.