Comparative Wildfire Risk Analysis for the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance

The San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance (SDZWA) is a world-renowned conservation organization with a 1800-acre zoo, the Safari Park, that houses more than 2600 animal and 3500 plant species. Located in Escondido (northern San Diego County), the Safari Park also includes a 800-acre biodiversity preserve with some of the most well-preserved, California-endemic coastal sage habitat. 

 In 2007, the Witch fire burned through 600 acres of the biodiversity reserve and stopped just outside the Safari Park borders. Since then, the SDZWA has transformed their in-house wildfire preparedness program, including hiring a team of dedicated wildfire suppression staff, fire suppression equipment boxes scattered throughout the park, an infrared and visible spectrum camera array for early ignition detection, and a 8500-gallon water tank for aerial suppression by local first responders. 

 While these investments in wildfire readiness are important for protecting the Safari Park grounds, landscape-scale risk analyses are needed to determine where fires may start and spread outside of park boundaries and which additional management activities could mitigate risk from fires originating beyond Park borders. Conservation Biology Institute (CBI) and Dudek have proposed to co-create the needed wildfire risk analysis for the SDZWA Safari Park.

 At the core of the risk analysis is a fusion and comparison between two commonly employed modeling efforts used in