A Sault Ste. Marie-based husband and wife duo are among the researchers behind the scenes monitoring and predicting the wildfires affecting much of the country and leading an effort to put a satellite in orbit to increase the data collected, while potentially saving lives in the process.
Joshua and Lynn Johnston are both part of a team of research scientists working at the Great Lakes Forestry Centre in Sault Ste. Marie, lovingly referred to by some as the Bug Lab. The married couple are two of about 20 people currently in the forest fire research section of the building.
The Johnstons recently sat down with SooToday to talk about raising a family, while simultaneously dealing with what may prove to be a record forest fire season in Canada, as well as leading a mission to put a multi-million dollar forest fire-detecting research satellite in space.
The worst fire season on record in Canada was in 1995, when a total of 7.5 million hectares burned coast to coast. It’s only partway through the 2023 fire season and already over 6.2 million hectares have burned.
“So that is 75 per cent the size of Scotland,” said Lynn. “It’s scary and it’s everywhere this year.”
”We haven’t even really gotten into the major part of it,” Joshua added. “This is going to be one of those major years that redefines everything.”
“By the 2030s this could be an average fire season, and that is a horrifying thought,” he added.
Lynn began working at the centre in 2006 and didn’t know Joshua when he was brought on in 2009.
“She was on my interview panel and was the only person who didn’t want to hire me,” said Joshua.
“It worked out in the end,” Lynn replied.
Joshua currently leads the Canadian WildFireSat mission, which will eventually launch a series of satellites into orbit tailor made to detect and track forest fire activity.
As part of her work at the centre, Lynn created a national map of fire urban interface areas, the junction zones between active forest fires and communities.
“Those are the ones you have to worry about because they are right at peoples’ doorsteps,” she said.
Joshua took a non-traditional route to becoming a research scientist, growing up in a firefighter family, later spending years in the field as a firefighter in the bush while working toward numerous degrees and eventually a doctorate.
“As a firefighter I was just paying for school, which almost makes a revolving door of degrees you can just keep getting until you realize that you’re way older than you should be because you keep beating yourself up. But by the end of it I was an incident commander and a mathematician, but not explicitly a scientist,” he said.
A chance encounter in the field changed the direction of Joshua’s career.
“Some fire behaviour analyst stopped by our base one day and did a little seminar about calculating spread directions on the side of a mountain and when I was looking at it I asked ‘is that vector addition?’” said Joshua. “He looked at me and asked ‘why do you know what vector addition is?’ and I said ‘I’m a mathematician’ and he said ‘you need to do something else with your life.’”
Lynn had earned a bachelor of biological sciences from the University of Guelph and had no idea fire science was a career option available to her, much less in Sault Ste Marie. Later she was introduced to someone working in the department at the Great Lakes Forestry Centre.
“Go talk to your high school guidance counsellor, any of them from around the world, who would tell you what we do for a living — there’s no roadmap for it,” said Lynn.
“I realized I would be a really good fit because I was always that kid who was poking at the campfire and trying to probably put too much on and getting in trouble,” she added. “I had a science background without any real specialization or focus. When I found out it was a thing there was no going back.”
The pair worked together at the centre for a few years before finally going on their first date, followed by marriage and two children — currently six and a nine years old.
“Working together in fire, we pretty much just talk about fire all of the time at home, at work — it’s all fire,” said Lynn.
“The reality is we take our work home with us more often than we should,” said Joshua. “Our kids can tell you the difference between all of the different water bombers and my nine-year-old frequently likes to use Lego to show me how to build the satellite better.”
The WildFireSat mission is expected to launch in 2029, giving Joshua and the team just six years to go from concept to reality.
Satellites are currently used for fire research, but the data they present comes by way of US-based NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration which are collecting a wide range of data, not specializing in fire research.
“The satellite mission we are leading is the world’s first operational fire mission — there’s been nothing like it out there ever — and we have the attention of the world from this and you can trace the entire origin of it to Sault Ste. Marie,” said Joshua. “When this became an operational mission, the first contact I received was from senior management at NASA, just cheering us on — and this is home-grown Algoma — and it has that level of profile.”
The WildFireSat mission’s primary goal is to support wildfire management, as well as providing more accurate smoke and air quality conditions, as well as more accurate measurement of carbon emissions from fires. Joshua said one of his personal drivers is the safety of the firefighters working in the field to combat those fires.
“Help the firefighters first, then we will do a bunch of science with the data — that’s the plan,” he said. “When this thing gets launched it’s not just going to be a bunch of nerds cheering, I want all of the firefighters watching the launch, because we all have a stake in it.”
Joshua admits it is kind of surreal to be leading the WildFireSat mission, a $169-million collaboration between Natural Resources Canada, the Canadian Space Agency and Environment and Climate Change Canada
“I was born in Chapleau. Nobody thinks you’re going to be designing satellites,” said Joshua.
Lynn said a lot of people don’t realize the amount of science that is done at the Great Lakes Forestry Centre and the opportunities available to people interested in a career.
“When we say he is building a satellite and working with astronauts and engineers it sounds a little crazy, but this was started in the Sault. It’s still unbelievable,” she said. “It’s always been mind blowing that we get paid to do this.”