SEATTLE — Few public universities get more federal research funding than the University of Washington. So as President Trump has already cancelled or suspended about a quarter of all funding for the National Science Foundation and National Institutes for Health, the atmosphere on this leafy Seattle campus is tense.The anxiety is even trickling down to lower profile places once considered safe from White House politics, like UW's School of Environmental and Forest Sciences.Here, newly proposed U.S.
Forest Service funding cuts and a larger reorganization of the agency would have immediate consequences as the West looks poised for an epic summer of wildfires and smoke. "We have a wildfire crisis in the West [and] in the United States," says Ernesto Alvarado, a fire ecologist and associate professor at the school.Alvarado is looking at a giant map of the U.S.on his computer.
It shows where wildfire smoke is, where it's forecast to drift, as well as the harmful particulates in it. He zooms in on a wildfire burning in New Mexico, where the smoke is dense and might be of concern for any immunocompromised people in the area. "If someone is living in Ruidoso, New Mexico, they can go and see where the smoke is going to," Alvarado says, moving his mouse from one monitoring station to the next.Alvarado and U.S.
Forest Service colleagues at the nearby Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Lab created this map.It's updated in real time with the help of a team of grad students and IT staff here at UW."We need to bring new technology fast," Alvarado says.This taxpayer funded tech is now widely used by governments, elite firefighting teams and popular commercial apps that people rely on when the smoke gets bad.
It's the product, Alvarado says, of institutional knowledge developed through years of Forest Service research into smoke and fires.He says that unlike a university that might get a grant for a few years of study, the USFS work spans decades."You are integrating the know...