If we can better understand scientifically how wildland fires behave, we'll have a better chance to accurately predict the spatial and temporal evolution of high intensity wildfires, says Dr. Shankar Mahalingam, dean of the UAH College of Engineering, and professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Dr. Mahalingam is studying how wildland fire propagates in an effort to be able to more accurately model such fires via physically based computational models. He says he's confident that the day will come when wildland fires will be forecast using computer models just as accurately as we now can forecast the next day's weather. "My vision is that, just like you have fairly reasonable weather predictions today for what is going to happen tomorrow that have evolved to be very accurate compared to where they started out in the 1940s and '50s, we can have that with fires," he says. "We look at the weather forecast every day to tell us how to prepare for tomorrow, and that is because we can predict the weather with a large degree of confidence."