{"id":1457,"date":"2025-10-24T10:14:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T09:14:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/palaeoclimate\/?p=1457"},"modified":"2025-10-24T10:14:44","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T09:14:44","slug":"1457-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/palaeoclimate\/1457-2\/","title":{"rendered":"IMFIREDUP 2025 – Second Meeting of the Consortium"},"content":{"rendered":"

The IMFIREDUP (Improved Modelling of FIRE: Development, Understanding and Prediction) consortium came together once again in September 2025 (see here for the blog on our original meeting<\/a>\u00a0last year) for a workshop funded by the\u00a0LEMONTREE project<\/a>. The meeting brought together researchers from across the wildfire modelling community for three days of presentations, discussions, and brainstorming sessions. The aim was to share progress, spark new ideas, and push forward collective efforts to better understand and model the complex dynamics of fire.<\/p>\n

S.P.E.C.I.A.L group PI Sandy Harrison<\/a> once again led the workshop, which was also attended by S.P.E.C.I.A.L team members Olivia Haas<\/a>, Sophia Cain<\/a> and Lucas Ellison<\/a>. They presented on their work looking at eco-evolutionary optimality fire modelling, fuel load dynamics and using ensemble modelling to capture drought events.<\/p>\n

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Image 1: The group on the final day of the workshop. Backrow left to right: Matt Forrest (Senckenberg), Stijn Hantson (Universidad del Rosario), Lucas Ellison (University of Reading), Matt Jones (University of East Anglia), Colin Prentice (Imperial College London), Yuchen Bai (Max Planck Institute (BGC-Jena). Front row left to right: Olivia Haas (University of Reading), Andrew Clelland (Imperial College London), Daniel Kinalczyk (TU Dresden), Matthias Forkel (TU Dresden), Alice Hsu (University of East Anglia), Sandy Harrison (University of Reading), Turin Dickman (Los Alamos National Laboratory). Not Pictured: Ana Bastos (Leipzig University), Joe Melton (Environment & Climate Change Canada), Sophia Cain (University of Reading).<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Day 1<\/strong>\u00a0began with a series of presentations and updates from both original, and new, consortium members. We heard from Stijn Hantson on FireMIP updates, providing a jumping-off point to reflect on model performance and intercomparison. Matthias Forkel then shared results from FireMIP 3, followed by Joe Melton on the CLASSIC model (the Canadian Land Surface Scheme with Biogeochemical Cycles), and Ana Bastos on implementing SPITFIRE into QUINCY\/ICON-LAND. These talks highlighted important progress in model development and assessment. Later, we heard about various option to incorporate machine learning and AI into our work with Yuchen Bai presenting work on downscaling short-term wildfire risk, and Andrew Clelland showcasing machine learning approaches for fire forecasting. Lastly, Matt Jones rounded off the day with insights from the\u00a0State of Wildfires<\/em>\u00a0report placing the consortium\u2019s work in the wider context of global fire science and policy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Day 2<\/strong>\u00a0of the workshop was built around four themed sessions, each tackling a key challenge in fire modelling.<\/p>\n