University of Idaho students use ember generator to recreate wildfire conditions to improve safety

MOSCOW, Idaho -- Students with the University of Idaho's College of Engineering and College of Science are teaming up to use a new device that creates embers that can travel in controlled environments.

Engineering students created the ember generator. They're using it on a small model of a town to mimic real wildfire conditions. They hope this further research will help mitigate risk and improve safety.

According to the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality said there were over 97,000 acres destroyed by fire in Idaho in 2023. The destruction included property damage, timber loss, exposure to wildfire smoke, watershed pollution, death and injury.

“ This isn ’ t just playing with fire,” said Peter Wieber , a recent biological engineering graduate involved in the project. “ We ’ re providing a wildfire research tool for the world.”

“This device provides a safe way of understanding the mechanisms for how heat and fire impact everything from structures to plant physiology,” Alistair Smith, professor and department chair in the U of I Department of Earth and Spatial Sciences said.

The ember generator is a motorized auger woodchip feed system that uses a propane flame to produce a steady stream of embers for 15 minutes without refueling.

The College of Engineering team includes Jackson Coleman of Boise, Caleb Hanson of Idaho Falls, Alexzander Smart of Caldwell, Cassidi Shindler of Colfax, WA and Peter Wieber of Boise.

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