Guest Speaker: Dr. Chris Dicus
For our spring dinner meeting, Dr. Dicus’ presentation will include a review of the devastating 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in Australia where more than one million acres were burned, entire towns were destroyed and 173 people died. He will also provide an overview of Shelter-in-Place as applied in the United States, discussing the approach’s development, application, how it differs from similar approaches in Australia, and its potential merits and shortcomings.
Dr. Dicus spent over six months working with Australian fire organizations during his sabbatical in 2009, including cooperating with the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre to collect post-fire social and biophysical data in Marysville, the epicenter of the Black Saturday Fires. He has subsequently worked with Australia and the Department of Homeland Security on how to contend with similar fire problems in the United States.
Professor Dr. Chris Dicus is the wildland fire and fuel management specialist at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He received a Ph.D. in Forestry at Louisiana State University, an M.S. in Forest Resources from Utah State University and a B.S. in Forestry and Wildlife from Louisiana Tech University.
Dr. Dicus sits on the Board of Directors of The Association for Fire Ecology and also the San Luis Obispo County FireSafe Council. He is also active in the Society of American Foresters (Los Padres Chapter) and leads the Wildland-Urban Interface module of the California Fire Science Consortium. He enjoys spending time with his family and church activities, surfing, backpacking, and writing music. He has been a guest speaker at over 50 regional, national, and international professional conferences.
The registration fee is $10 per person, which includes dinner and the presentation. RSVP to socalsaf@gmail.com by April 21 in order to guarantee a seat at the table!
Date: Thursday, April 28, 2011
Time: 5:30 pm; dinner served at 6:00 pm in the Kitchen
Contact: Doug Nickles at dnickles@yahoo.com for more information.
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