COMING FULL CIRCLE: HOW A TRAGEDY MADE ME A BETTER SCIENTIST

I have been on both sides of a tragedy. I have billed hours for walking the scoured channel of a torched watershed and for peering up the gun barrel of a denuded basin with a nervous homeowner, for looking in the houses of the deceased. And I know what it is to lose something you love to nature, to see your hometown go up in smoke: Paradise was the epicenter of the most expensive natural disaster in the world in 2018. Thirty-thousand people called it home the day it was destroyed by California’s most destructive and fatal wildfire to date. More than 18,000 structures and 85 souls were blinked out in less than eight hours; my parents almost died. In this talk, I will tell the audience how my personal experiences with wildfire and loss have translated into my professional role as a wildfire hydrologist. The following topics will be briefly explored: the ingredients and fallout of climate displacement; having difficult conversations about personal accountability and risk with communities that choose to live in fire-prone wildland urban interface; and, how my experience as a victim made me a more informed scientist.