Fiona Newman Thacker
About Fiona Newman Thacker, ESR9
Originally from the UK, I am now based in the Netherlands at Wageningen University. My work includes collaborations with the Catalan Fire and Rescue Service (Spain) and the Forestry Commission (England), as well as other travels around Europe. I have been interested in wildfires since the start of my BSc, in particular the use of an integrated socio-ecological approach to understanding and mitigating wildfire risk. Understanding that wildfires are not just an environmental problem but also a social one, my broad research topic within my PhD allows me to explore these interconnections on a broad scale.
Affiliation
Wageningen University and Research
Research focus
My project focusses on the concept of fire resilient landscapes. Resilience is crucial if communities are going to be able to coexist with fire. In this research I firstly work towards an overall definition of a fire resilient landscape, as there is a lack of consensus about what this term actually means. I use this definition to explore interactions between land cover and wildfire events in Catalonia (Spain), framing this relationship in the context of resilience. Finally, I look at rewilding in the UK and how this may impact present and future resilience to wildfire events.
More about Fiona´s research here.
Skills and abilities
GIS and remote sensing | Critical Thinking | Scientific writing | Qualitative analysis
Languages
English, Dutch (basic)
Education
- BSc Physical Geography (Durham University)
- MSc Risk – Master thesis ‘Investigating the 2022 Chernobyl Power Plant Fire, its impacts and predictability’ (Durham University)
Contact
Social media
LinkedIn: Fiona Newman-Thacker
Research publications
Stoof, C. R., de-Vries, J. R., Castellnou-Ribau, M., Fernández, M., Flores, D., Galarza-Villamar, J., Kettridge, N., Lartey, D., Moore, P. F., Newman-Thacker, F., Prichard, S. J., Tersmette, P., Tuijtel, S., Verhaar, I., and Fernandes, P. M. (2024). Megafire: An ambiguous and emotive term best avoided by science. Global Ecology and Biogeography. 33(2): 341 – 351.
Thacker, F.E.N., Ribau, M.C., Bartholomeus, H. et al. (2023). What is a fire resilient landscape? Towards an integrated definition. Ambio 52, 1592–1602 – Factsheet with recommendations for policymakers and emergency responders available here.
Other communication outputs
Poster: “What is a fire resilient landscape? Towards an integrated approach”. Leverhulme Wildfires Summer Conference 2023