ICLR to host wildfire, hurricane webinars this June

The Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction will be holding two webinars in June, related to wildfires and the Atlantic hurricane season.

The first event will be on June 6 from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. ET and will feature Kerry Anderson, Fire Research Officer with the Canadian Forest Service, part of Natural Resources Canada.

Dr. Anderson received his B.Sc. in 1985, M.Sc. in 1991 and Ph.D in 2009 at the University of Alberta. His Ph.D. thesis, entitled “A Multi-scale Approach to Fire-growth Modelling” examined predicting forest fire growth over a range of scales from hourly to seasonally.

His M.Sc. thesis, entitled “Models to Predict Lightning Occurrence and Prediction over Alberta” examined the ability to forecast lightning using upper air soundings.

Dr. Anderson is actively involved in research to predict smoke forecasting, fire weather and fire behaviour. Through this research, Dr. Anderson has and continues to develop models to assist fire management agencies in daily operational planning by predicting the potential impact of fires on the landscape.

The second webinar event will be held June 20, from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. ET. It will feature Bob Robichaud, a Warning Preparedness Meteorologist with the Canadian Hurricane Centre.

Robichaud received his B.Sc. in meteorology from Lyndon State College in Vermont in 1995. After a few years as a weather forecaster in the private sector, he joined Environment Canada in 1998 as an aviation forecaster in Gander, Nfld. where he eventually became aviation weather program manager for Atlantic Canada.

In 2003, Robichaud managed the National Aviation Weather Services contract with NAV CANADA and he has also written a book on aviation weather for eastern Canada. Robichaud moved to Halifax in 2004 to fill the new warning preparedness meteorologist role in Atlantic Canada where his primary focus is working closely with emergency management officials on a variety of different weather related issues including training, exercising and support during actual weather events.

For both events, participants can visit www.meet.cullbridge.com/iclr and dial in to 1-888-947-3989, using the code 985368.

RSVP: Tracy Waddington (twaddington@iclr.org)