Mike Flannigan, Thompson Rivers University

Research

atmospheric science climate change fire behaviour fire management fire weather fuel moisture lightning numerical weather monitoring

Latest papers

A weakened diurnal weather constraint leads to longer burning hours in North America.
Science advances · 2026 · senior author
Persistent positive anomalies in geopotential heights drive enhanced wildfire activity across Europe.
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025 · senior author
Drivers and Impacts of the Record-Breaking 2023 Wildfire Season in Canada.
Nature communications · 2024

All 5 publications

Latest funding

U.S.-Canada Center on Climate-Resilient Western Interconnected Grid
NSERC · 2023 · Co-investigator
$1,312,500
Wildland fire management using near real time high resolution remote sensing data
NSERC · 2020 · Co-investigator
$398,800
Funding for application preparation - NSERC/CFS Strategic Network on Wildland Fire Research
NSERC · 2019 · Principal investigator
$10,190

All 9 grants and awards

5 publications.

01

A weakened diurnal weather constraint leads to longer burning hours in North America.

Luo K, Wang X, Castellanos-Acuna D, Flannigan M

Science advances2026Senior author

DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aed0725 PMID: 41996499

02

Persistent positive anomalies in geopotential heights drive enhanced wildfire activity across Europe.

Little K, Castellanos-Acuna D, Jain P, Graham L, Kettridge N, Flannigan M

Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2025Senior author

DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2023.0455 PMID: 40241449

03

Drivers and Impacts of the Record-Breaking 2023 Wildfire Season in Canada.

Jain P, Barber QE, Taylor SW, Whitman E, Castellanos Acuna D, Boulanger Y, Chavardès RD, Chen J, Englefield P, Flannigan M, Girardin MP, Hanes CC, Little J, Morrison K, Skakun RS, Thompson DK, Wang X, Parisien MA

Nature communications2024

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-51154-7 PMID: 39164286

04

Drought triggers and sustains overnight fires in North America.

Luo K, Wang X, de Jong M, Flannigan M

Nature2024Senior author

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07028-5 PMID: 38480963

05

Spatial planning of fire-agency stations as a function of wildfire likelihood in Thasos, Greece.

Sakellariou S, Parisien MA, Flannigan M, Wang X, de Groot B, Tampekis S, Samara F, Sfougaris A, Christopoulou O

The Science of the total environment2020

DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139004 PMID: 32498173

U.S.-Canada Center on Climate-Resilient Western Interconnected Grid

Co-investigatorNSERC2023Alliance Grants

Principal investigators: Zareipour, Hamidreza H

Keywords: climate-change induced grid issues; flooding and grid resiliency; grid modernization; heat wavesand grid resiliency; linking grid, data, climate, society; northern communities weak grids; secondary impacts of extreme events; social equity and grid outages; technology transfer and training; wildfires and grid resiliency

$1,312,500

Wildland fire management using near real time high resolution remote sensing data

Co-investigatorNSERC2020Alliance Grants

Principal investigators: Boisvert, Jeff J

Keywords: emergency management; exposure assessment; fire behavior prediction; fuel characterization; geostatistics; remote sensing; risk assessment; unmanned aerial vehicles (uav); wildfire; wildland fires

$398,800

Funding for application preparation - NSERC/CFS Strategic Network on Wildland Fire Research

Principal investigatorNSERC2019Strategic Research Networks Program Letters of Intent

Principal investigators: Flannigan, Mike

$10,190

NSERC/CFS Canada Wildfire Strategic Network

Principal investigatorNSERC2019Strategic Network Grants Program

Principal investigators: Flannigan, Mike MD

$5,050,000

Fire weather and fuel moisture controls on wildfire activity - present and future.

Principal investigatorNSERC2019Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Principal investigators: Flannigan, Mike

Keywords: atmospheric science; climate change; fire behaviour; fire management; fire weather; fuel moisture; lightning; numerical weather monitoring; weather forecasting; wildland fire

$307,560

Workshop - Building a Wildfire Research Network

Principal investigatorNSERC2018Connect Grants Level 2

Principal investigators: Flannigan, Mike

$16,624

Fire weather and lightning fires in a changing climate

Principal investigatorNSERC2014Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Principal investigators: Flannigan, Mike

$135,000

Sustainable Forest Management/Réseau de gestion durable des forêts

Co-investigatorNSERC2002Networks of Centres of Excellence

Principal investigators: Fyles, James

$15,950,000

Sustainable Forest Management (SFM)

Co-investigatorNSERC1995Networks of Centres of Excellence

Principal investigators: Adamowicz, Wiktor(Vic)

$9,921,000

From CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC funding decisions: CIHR since 2008, NSERC since 1991 and SSHRC since 1998, including their latest published competition results.

Write to this professor

A short, specific email works best. This draft uses one of their recent papers; replace the parts in brackets with your own details before sending.

Applying for

Paper to mentionMention their NSERC grant from 2019

Subject: Prospective PhD student: atmospheric science Dear Professor Flannigan, My name is [your name], and I am a [your current degree or role] at [your institution]. I am applying for a PhD position starting in [term and year]. I read your paper "A weakened diurnal weather constraint leads to longer burning hours in North America." (2026), and it connects closely to my own work on [your research topic]. [One or two sentences on what you did and what you learned.] I also saw your NSERC-funded project "Funding for application preparation - NSERC/CFS Strategic Network on Wildland Fire Research" (2019), and I would be glad to contribute to work in that direction. Are you accepting new PhD students for [term and year]? I have attached my CV and transcripts, and I would be glad to talk at a time that suits you. Thank you for your time. Kind regards, [your name]