Post-Doctoral Position in Fire Observation
Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya
The Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya · BarcelonaTech (UPC) is a public institution of research and higher education in the fields of engineering, architecture, sciences and technology, and one of the leading technical universities in Europe. Every year, close to 6,000 bachelor’s and master’s students, more than 300 doctoral students and 1,600 continuing education students graduate.
The position is hosted at CERTEC a research group in the Department of Chemical Engineering of UPC, located on the EBEE campus. CERTEC’s mission encompasses research, education, and technology transfer in the fields of risk and safety, addressing both public and private sector needs at local and international levels.
CERTEC´s research areas includes:
- Process Industry Risk Analysis: Investigating safety in chemical and industrial processes
- Compartment Fires: Studying fire dynamics within enclosed spaces
- Wildland and Wildland-Urban Interface Fires: Research in fire behavior in natural and transitional zones between wildlands and urban areas
- Fire Observation: Developing methodology and data processing for fire behavior observation
- Fire Modeling: Developing computational tools for fire behavior prediction.
The successful candidate will principally get involved in the Fire Observation research effort and will be
working with Dr. Ronan Paugam.
Homepage: https://certec.upc.edu/en
Geosciences Instrumentation and Data Systems (GI)
Natural Hazards (NH)
Background:
The job position is part of the EUBURN project.
EUBURN (The southern EUrope biomass BURNing project) is a research program that advances knowledge of extreme wildfires in southern Europe, their impacts on climate and air quality, and develops tools for forecasting direct (fire spread) and indirect (air pollution) risks. Its approach couples processes across biodiversity, fire, and atmosphere at multiple scales, from local to regional, which have traditionally been studied separately.
The program focuses on acquiring data to improve scientific understanding and to calibrate/evaluate digital tools, through unprecedented measurement campaigns in France, Spain, and Portugal. An open transnational database will support data sharing among research teams and operational services.
A first campaign, SILEX (Smoke from European wILdfires EXperiment), took place in July–August 2025, using the SAFIRE ATR-42 aircraft to test instruments, train staff, and study the 3D extent and properties of fire plumes. A second campaign, EUBURN-RISK, is planned for summer 2027 with a full deployment of drones, aircraft, ground platforms, and enhanced long-term monitoring, based in Portugal to target fires in Portugal and southern Spain.
In parallel, the project develops regional modeling capacity for wildfire spread, fire emissions, and atmospheric transport, using both operational models (MOCAGE, MONARCH) and research models (MESONH, CNRM-ALADIN, CNRM-ESM).
EUBURN is built on transnational cooperation among research teams, agencies, and wildfire response services, pooling resources for observation, data sharing, and joint tool development. Current partners include Météo-France (CNRM, coordinator), AEMET, IPMA, AMAYA-INFOCA, Entente Vallabre, University of Évora, UPC, University of Valladolid, LaMP, LATMOS, CERFACS, LAERO, University of Corsica, LOA, BSC, LMV, IGE, and SPE.
Job description:
UPC is involved in EUBURN to support the different aspects of fire activity monitoring. The tasks of the position include:
* Processing of data collected during the 2025 SILEX campaign. Calculation of FRP from Middle Wave Infra Red Camera operated onboard the SAFIRE ATR42 aircraft. Comparison with available satellite data from sensors including VIIRS onboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20/21 satellites, SLSTR onboard the Sentinel3 fleet or FCI onboard the MeteoSat Third Generation (MTG) satellite.
* Fire Front delineation and ROS computation from IR Observation. Using previous experiences from Ronan Paugam on ROS calculation from helicopter airborne observation, the goal is here to extend its applicability in the context of operational operation. This task is main challenge of UPC participation to EUBURN. A key step in ROS algorithm is the delineation of fire front out of the IR observations.
It is already a product in itself that will help operational operation. Its development will be conducted in collaboration with EMA-INFACO. Using their data archive, a machine learning approach will be developed to leverage the segmentation of fire front at the time of the observation. The machine learning architecture will be developed as part of this work.
* development of a pay load for fire activity observation during drone night time flight. The objective is to investigate a methodology to detect fire hotspot location and intensity on the go during night time flight drone patrol conducted operationally by EMA-INFACO. The main challenge is to geolocalized the fire activity during the drone flight. Onboard drone Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) are usually not providing enough accuracy. Prescribed burn in spring 2026 in Andalusia will be used to estimate the required precision of the IMU, and a first system will be tested in the summer 2026 with EMA-INFACO.
* EUBURN collaboration with the modeler teams. Effort will be made to make fire observation available to the fire modeling team to support the modeling objective of EUBURN.
* Preparation and participation to the 2027 EUBURN field campaign.
* Tasks will also include the dissemination of results through scientific publications, conference presentations, and stakeholder communications. The candidate is expected to contribute to peer-reviewed articles, project reports, and participate in workshops or meetings to ensure effective communication within the consortium and with the broader scientific and operational communities.
Send a CV and a cover letter to ronan.paugam@upc.edu.