A group of 11 high school students on Northeastern University’s Oakland campus raced to rip open reflective, fire-resistant bags from their backpacks before jumping inside and lying flat on the grass. The exercise simulated the type of last-resort, lifesaving measures used by firefighters who find themselves trapped by raging wildfires. The hands-on demonstration, part of a two-week pre-college program led by Northeastern faculty on wildfire ecology and mitigation, coincided with a fast-moving blaze along the Colorado-Utah border. The harrowing incident earlier this month resulted in the deaths of three firefighters despite their deployment of the same emergency fire shelters, exemplifying the often harsh reality of battling wildfires.
“It was weirdly useful and illustrative of the problem,” said Sarah Swope, an evolutionary ecologist and associate professor of biology at Northeastern who led the pilot Accelerate Pre-College Program. The course is part of the 10th edition of the summer offering for rising high school juniors and seniors from around the world, and the first year of a location-targeted lesson plan for the Oakland campus.
