"The Park Fire is the fifth-largest wildfire in the history of California, having burned about 390,000 acres and destroyed more than 400 structures. Authorities say it began when a man pushed a burning car into a ravine, and it quickly spread across a landscape covered in dry vegetation.

The fire has swept through the Big Chico Creek watershed, a 240-square-mile area in and around the City of Chico. While the city itself has been largely spared, the blaze has devastated a surrounding ecosystem familiar to Emily Schlickman, assistant professor of landscape architecture and environmental design at the University of California, Davis. She and her students had been studying the Big Chico Creek area before it went up in flames, looking at ways to make it more resilient to wildfires—and in turn reduce the risk of a blaze spreading through the city itself.

Schlickman studies how land use planning and landscape management can support adaptation to climate change. Her students drew up plans for mixed-use developments that would build new housing in Chico’s interior rather than on its fire-threatened periphery. The city has said infill development, the practice of increasing density in already-settled areas, is a key part of meeting housing needs and had requested proposals for an area near the center of the city. The students also developed strategies to manage the landscape in ways that would mitigate the risk of an out-of-control blaze."