It's All About Me

Kelsy Gibos

 

01/11/08

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History

I was born and raised in Blairmore, a sweet quiet town nestled in the southern Rocky Mountains of Alberta, Canada.  My parents both spent their childhood in the Crowsnest Pass, and I feel as though they have passed on respect for the wonderful living environment there.  I began my post secondary education at Mount Royal College in Calgary, Alberta.  As most people straight out of high school, I did not exactly have a plan, so I tasted multiple disclipines in my first two years including math, astronomy, drama, physical fitness, biology, inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry and outdoor leadership.

Eventually I moved north to attend the University of Alberta and start a degree in pharmacy.  Lucky for me, I met some interesting individuals in a summer school session and changed my application for the fall to the Environmental and Conservation Science program in the Faculty of Forestry, Agriculture and Home Economics.  I spent another three years loving every class the program had to offer, honing my skills in land reclamation principles, soil sciences, forest management and wildlife identification.  I graduated with a Bachelors of Science and first class standing in 2004.

After working numerous jobs in the forestry industry including a glamorous northern BC tree planter, a proud Alberta Junior Forest Ranger leader (2 seasons), I finally stumbled into a forest fire related position.  In 2003, the Lost Creek Fire nearly wiped out my family home in Blairmore, and my interest in fire behaviour was awakened.  Eventually I stumbled into a technician position counting sticks for the Wildland Fire Operations Research Group out of Hinton, Alberta.  Since then I have been chasing the sunshine and hot, dry conditions globally looking for smoke plumes.  I have lit the invasive gorse on fire in the Canterbury Plains of New Zealand's south island, sorted the high alpine tussock grasses of the Southern Alps, burned the mallee scrub and heathlands of Ngarkat Conservation Park of Southern Australia and of course, lit up the jack pine forests in the 24 hour sunshine of Fort Providence, Northwest Territories, Canada.

As mentioned earlier, I am currently separated from my love of nature and pounding the pavement in downtown Toronto.  I am in the first half of my MScF, and intend to collect data in the Alberta Rockies during the course of the summer.

 

Crowsnest Pass, Alberta

Interests

Although fire is my main love at the moment, my other personal interests relate to everything there is to do outside.  I enjoy rock climbing, mountain biking, kayaking of any sort, hiking, skiing, mountaineering (in a basic sense) and any other outdoor sport someone wants to challenge me with.  I also like to bake and read, but generally stray away from boring domestic tasks.

 

My research interests relate to the mountain environment, especially related to changes in the drying and wetting cycling of fine forest fuels.  I hope to provide insight and small improvements to the FWI system and other CFFDRS components.  I am also interested in expanding my fire fighting experience especially to understand management practices, suppression techniques and reasoning behind resource allocation.

Titles of some of my previous reports include:

  • 'Protecting wildland firefighters from smoke exposure: a review of the literature'- FERIC 2005

  • 'Literature review of international fire danger rating systems' - Ensis Bushfire Research 2006 (in progress)

  • 'Literature review of development of 3 dimensional grids for the evaluation of long term fire retardant drops'- FERIC 2006 (in progress)

  • 'Lessons learned from implementation of national and regional wildfire threat analysis in New Zealand' - Ensis Bushfire Research 2007

  • 'Thermo-Gel Field Evaluation' - FERIC 2007 (in progress)

  • 'The physics of mountain climate and its effects on fine fuel moisture content' - University of Toronto 2007

  • 'The Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System and its applications in forest management decision-making processes' - University of Toronto 2007

 

 

This site was last updated 01/11/08