CALIFORNIA · TREE FIRE RISK
I'm Qianle (Bill) Chen, a Research Assistant at UCLA's Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science and Engineering, where I analyze thermal satellite imagery to study wildfire progression and urban heat patterns. My work has been featured in NASA's Caltech Jet Propulsion Lab ECOSTRESS gallery.
I'm passionate about applying data science and remote sensing to environmental challenges. Currently, I'm coordinating a multi-million-dollar research project with the Orange County Fire Department to develop AI-based decision-support models for wildfire response and resource allocation.
This project grew directly out of my work with the Orange County Fire Authority on the NSF-FIRE initiative. In conversations with fire operations personnel, one recurring need emerged: a reliable, accessible reference for tree-level fire risk across California's native and cultivated species. Knowing which species carry extreme flammability, poor bark protection, or high drought sensitivity is critical for defensible space planning, fuel load assessments, and pre-fire deployment decisions.
California Tree Fire Risk is built to serve that need — translating research-level fire ecology data into a format that is useful for firefighters, land managers, homeowners, and researchers alike. Every species is evaluated on flammability, bark protection, and drought sensitivity based on published literature and field observations.
This is an active and evolving project. Planned additions include:
Whether it's wildfire research, remote sensing, or environmental data science — I'd love to connect.