Megafire The

PAID PPCO U.S. Postage U.S. Non Profit Org. Alumni Magazine Winter 2017 Alumni Association 459 UCB 80309-0459 CO Boulder, ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: RAMEN KING IVAN ORKIN GLENN MILLER’S GOLD RECORD TO FINLAND, WITH LOVE OLD HOME ON THE HILL MEGAFIRE THE TOO- BRIGHT FUTURE OF WILDFIRE IN AMERICA NOWOCTOBER 2017 Snow came to campus early this fall: The first flakes piled up Monday, Oct. 9. In all, six inches fell in Boulder that day, according to the National Weather Service. The university operated as normal. Colorado’s famous bluebird sky returned the next morning. 1 WINTER 2017 Coloradan ColoradanPhoto by WINTER Glenn Asakawa 2017 2 FEATURES EDITOR’S NOTE Marvels of human daring 15 Megafire and ingenuity have Wildfire, a familiar phenomenon in the Amer- brought us to sea bot- ican West, is getting worse. Michael Kodas of toms and mountaintops, CU Boulder’s Center for Environmental Jour- to the moon and back. nalism reports. There’s serious talk of human travel to Mars. Yet our species’ 23 A Family Tale creativity and self-con- A 2012 accident paralyzed Marty O’Connor fidence can also blind (Film’10) below the shoulders. Then he went to us to the natural world business school with a trusted study buddy at whence we sprang and his side. of which we’re part. We forget that towns and cities and the comforts 25 Where’d My 14er Go? of civilization are our A new way of measuring elevation in the U.S. creation. We emerged might cost Colorado a couple 14ers. from something less tame and predictable, and we remain subject to 29 A Houseful of Tepleys its forces. One house on The Hill. One family. Four Often of late, nature generations of Buffs. erupts to remind us. In 2017, hurricanes devastated Puerto Rico 31 MOOC and submerged Houston Online education gains steam at CU Boulder. as wildfires vaporized swaths of the American West, most consequen- 35 Ramen King tially in California. Japan went crazy for Ivan Orkin’s (Jpn'87) Fire demands attention ramen. Now America has the fever. in the West. As Michael Kodas of CU’s Center for Environmental Journalism 39 Ancient Beasts of Australia explains in our cover sto- What killed them off? A CU scientist with an ry, wildfire has grown far Arctic pedigree thinks he’s found the answer in more ferocious, a trend the hot Australian interior. expected to continue. We’ve often engi- neered our way to safety. Kodas shows us just COVER Wildfire in the U.S. is what we’re dealing with. likely to get a lot worse. Photo by Michael Kodas. Eric Gershon LEFT A quiet moment outside Old Main. See a medley of campus doorways on page 11. Photo by Casey A. Cass. DEPARTMENTS 1 NOW First Snow 8 BOULDER BEAT 21 INFOGRAPHIC 49 Sports 65 THEN Paul Danish Wildfire World War I 5 INQUIRY 55 Class Notes Lori Peek 11 LOOK Portals 43 Alumni News 61 Letters CONTACT ERIC GERSHON AT 7 Campus News 13 ORIGINS Gold Record 47 Q&A with the Chancellor [email protected] 3 WINTER 2017 Coloradan Coloradan WINTER 2017 4 INQUIRY LORI PEEK NATURAL HAZARDS in rural eastern Kansas — my grand- we don’t mitigate risk, we’re going to is to provide actionable information. It Lori Peek (PhDSoc’05), a CU Boulder parents’ house was hit by a tornado continue to see these bigger disasters. is not effective to just say: ‘A hurricane sociology professor, directs the university’s and their barn was destroyed and their We must keep our eye on the prize and is coming, get out of the way.’ It is im- Natural Hazards Center. house was badly damaged. Fortunate- work on reducing the risks we face, portant to offer concrete steps people ly, they were fine. I still have such vivid which means building smarter, more can take in light of their social context. Floods, hurricanes and wildfires: memories of my three brothers and my sustainably and with a climate-resilient 2017 has been devastating in the parents and I going down into the cellar framework so we don’t see more Are there certain regions in the U.S. U.S. Have you been unusually busy? outside of our house when tornado mega-catastrophes. that are more vulnerable to disasters? Yes. We have been compiling resources warnings would be issued. There is no place that doesn’t have for community members, stakeholders Has there been an increase in nat- some hazards risk. However, some and others to help educate and inform Your book with Alice Fothergill ural disasters, or are more people places have much higher exposure, as these disasters are unfolding. We also (PhDSoc’01), Children of Katrina, just living in vulnerable areas? and some hazards are much more run a quick-response grant program that focuses on the long-term effects of The number of reported natural disas- frequent and severe. New Orleans, Mi- helps deploy researchers into the field Hurricane Katrina on children. What ters in the U.S. has tripled over the last ami, New York City, Los Angeles, San so they can gather data and launch lon- are they? 20 years. Some of the explanations Francisco and Houston are what we ger-term studies. There have been a lot Something Katrina really taught us is for the increase are related to climatic call disaster hotspots, because they of inquiries from media outlets. that the most destructive and disrup- changes, population growth and un- have large concentrations of people tive disasters can have truly life-altering sustainable development in hazardous and infrastructure in highly hazard- What sparked your interest in study- consequences for children. When chil- areas. There is no one simple answer prone regions. ing the sociology of hazards and dren experience life threat or multiple for why we are seeing bigger disasters, disasters? displacements, these sorts of things but we must understand these complex What is the most important thing peo- I arrived as a new graduate student at CU can disrupt education, peer networks causes if we ever hope to reduce them. ple around the country need to learn in 1999 and had the incredible fortune to and family networks and can have from our recent natural disasters? be hired as the graduate research assis- long-standing implications for their Are there positives that have come Disasters of this magnitude are not in- tant at the National Hazards Center. I fell health, development and well-being. out of increased media coverage? evitable. There is a possibility to reduce in love with the possibility of taking social What I’ve found most positive and the risk we are all facing, but that is scientific knowledge and applying it for Has the U.S. made progress since heartening is that there has been a lot going to take time, resources, sound the betterment of humanity. Katrina on hurricane recovery? more evidence-informed reporting, science, leadership, focused attention While we have improved in terms of really drawing on the expert knowledge and collective action. Have you ever directly experienced our emergency response, we have that is out there. In addition, leaders a natural disaster? continued to build and develop in areas have come on TV and been doing Condensed and edited by Lauren Price No, but when I was a child — I grew up that are subject to natural hazards. If something that we recommend, which (MJour’17). 5 WINTER 2017 Coloradan Photo by Glenn Asakawa Coloradan WINTER 2017 6 BOULDER BEAT By Paul Danish THE TRIP residents of a Quechua Indian village IN 1968 CU ARCHITECTURE student Bob 12,000 feet up in the Andes. White (Arch ex’71) was sitting in his red The Automobile Club of Argentina 1962 4x4 Chevy truck in Circle, Alaska threw a reception for him. (just shy of the Arctic Circle), out of money, food, gas and options. START He pulled out a map and realized he was as far north as you could drive on a road. WINTER 2017 So he decided to drive to Tierra del News Fuego at the southern tip of South America. “Giant decisions are sometimes made Circles in the Sand on the spur of the moment,” Bob said. Recently he sent me a book he wrote A CU ECOLOGIST TACKLES A MYSTERY IN AFRICA recalling the adventure. It’s titled The Trip. START: And a splendid broth of a trip it was. Circle, Alaska BARREN CIRCLES OF RED SAND, 30 to 100 Sure enough, in fairy circles where wa- Bob was chased by a grizzly bear while FINISH: feet wide, form a Swiss-cheese pattern ter and nutrients were both added, the camping near Lake Louise in Canada. Tierra del Fuego across hundreds of miles of arid grass- grasses grew back — the circles started He drove across the frozen Yukon TRANSPORT: lands in the Namib Desert of southwest to “die.” Adding resources had decreased River as the ice was breaking up under 1962 Chevy 4x4 Africa. No one knows why. Local legends competition among plants, which other- his wheels. call them footprints of the gods. wise fight for them in the low-nutrient, In Mexico, he tried his hand at bull FINISH Scientists have proposed various dry environment. fighting. (The bull won; Bob landed in a causes for these “fairy circles,” as The findings suggest fairy circles form pile of fresh bull stuff.) And then there’s the possible en- they’re also known, including hungry when starved plants die, freeing resourc- He dined with a contingent of Los counter with a South American Yeti termites and underground gases wafting es for their neighbors, which grow tall Indio’s de los Colorados, said to be while camping in the mountains of up and killing patches of grass.

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