As wildfires raged across the Western U.S. this summer, members of Scott Fendorf’s research group drove ahead of the flames in Oregon and Idaho with portable pumps to sample particles in the air for analysis.

Fendorf is a professor of Earth system science and senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment.

For Fendorf and his team, the rising frequency of wildfires represents both a danger and an opportunity. “We now take advantage of the large number of wildfires that are occurring,” said Fendorf, the Terry Huffington Professor in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. “When a wildfire comes up, we deploy to the closest place that we can get to, then work backwards from where smoke is coming up and collect particles in the air.”

Fendorf’s team has discovered that wildfires alter metals within soils that impact air pollution, water quality, and potentially plant growth. Their research seeks to inform fire management strategies and help people understand exposure risks during and post-fire.

While Fendorf’s team focuses on the chemical impacts of wildfires, other groups at Stanford are employing robots, AI, and even goats to confront the wildfire crisis. The university conducts innovative research on its diverse lands and in the field, collaborates with area fire agencies, and taps into the ingenuity of its talented students to contribute to wildfire resilience.

“As a private landowner, Stanford is engaging with our regional partners to try out new technology and to use Stanford for what I think the vision’s always been, which is to be a living lab for research and use that work to help other members of the community,” said Cody Hill, associate director of the university’s Resilience and Emergency Response Program.

Hill is part of the Wildfire Resilience Program at Stanford, a multi-department effort focused on land stewardship activities, fire fuel reduction treatments, and cooperation with local agencies to enhance regional wildfire resilience. The program prioritizes protection of sensitive native ecosystems and cultural resources, support for field research opportunities, piloting innovative technologies, and community outreach.

“Many other universities don’t have the land portfolio that we do, so Stanford is harnessing this opportunity to be good stewards of the land, to be good neighbors, and to test out new technologies,” Hill said.