New Vacancy!
While fire behavior in Mediterranean ecosystems is very well documented there is a major knowledge gap regarding fire behavior in temperate NW European fuels and moisture conditions. Yet accurate information on this is essential for spatio-temporal assessment of fire risk and fire impact. The Junior Researcher will study similarities and differences in fire behavior between temperate NW and Southern Europe and assess the use of fire spread models in temperate NW Europe in operational settings by 1) characterizing fuel types and moisture to later analyze fire behavior in NW European ecosystems, 2) assessing drivers of fire behavior in NW Europe, and 3) improving the potential to model NW European fire behavior using existing fire behavior models.
The candidate will be involved in the scientific development of operational tools used by fire agencies worldwide and processes aiming to improve the quality of current products related to fuel mapping or the near real-time assessment of live fuel moisture, among other challenging topics. The job position will be presential at Tecnosylva’ premises in León, Spain, and we propose doing a secondment in the Netherlands (6 months) during the project to collect field measurements of fuels and improve the career development of the Junior Researcher. Note that Tecnosylva has recently implemented its fire simulator (FireSim) in this country.
WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR
We are looking for one highly motivated and skilled junior researcher with a recent university MSc degree in forestry, environmental sciences, biology, geography or related area. The candidate must not have a PhD degree. The candidate should have good communication skills and good proficiency in English (both oral and written); ability to communicate in Spanish is desirable. They should have experience in, preferably both, remote sensing as well as ecological/fire modelling with strong background in forestry or geography. If you want to be a part of a unique team project, and you fulfill the detailed requirements, please apply. Specific desired skills:
- Recent Masters degree in environmental sciences: e.g. geography, forestry, wildfire science, GIS or another suitably related discipline;
- Experience with field research and sampling in forestry or other type of environmental sciences.
- Good programming skills (R, Python, or similar). Experience with statistical/mathematical software environments such as R.
- Experience on fire modelling, fuel mapping and vegetation monitoring.
- Good command of Geographical information systems (ArcGis, Qgis, etc) is desirable.
- Affinity with remote sensing and/or climate modelling.
- Ability to work in a project team and take responsibility for own research goals.
- Ability to work independently and to cooperate within a wider research team. Good reporting and presentation skills.
ABOUT TECNOSYLVA
Tecnosylva is a company based in Spain and US, delivering world-class wildland fire solutions for fire agencies and the utilities industry, encapsulated in our products fiResponse and Wildfire Analyst. Our customers include US Forest Service, CAL FIRE, 10 states in the US, CONAF Chile and most of the Spanish agencies, including the Military Emergency Unit.
The candidate will be involved in our Tecnosylva’s Wildfire Analyst Enterprise (WFA-E) cloud-based project that includes custom applications to review the risk forecast (FireCast), and create and review real-time, on-demand fire spread predictions (FireSim). The solution has the benefit of supporting both applications in the same operational framework. It has been selected by CALFIRE among 131 other proposals to build the state wildfire risk and modeling system.
NOTE
Starting date of 1 April 2022
Contact information:
Victor Arrimada de la Parra, Head of the Human Resources department varrimada@tecnosylva.com
Dr. Adrian Cardil, PI Pyrolife from Tecnosylva, acardil@tecnosylva.com
