This year, the 37th Annual Natural Hazards Research and Applications Workshop is offering something new—disasters in our own backyard. And while the wildfires smoldering around the Natural Hazards Center weren’t exactly our choice, they are a reminder of how the Workshop is more relevant than ever.

The immediate threat of post-fire flash flooding—and the longer-term threats of drought, vegetation changes from a spruce bark beetle outbreak, and unknown climate change impacts—highlight the acute need for communication among researchers and practitioners from many disciplines. And this year's Hazards Workshop program makes an extra effort to bring emergency managers into the conversation about, help navigate, and maybe even alter the tide of research and national programs rushing toward them.

The most recent additions to our program are Western wildfire related. Our traditional barbecue on the patio of the NCAR Mesa Lab, with its stunning view of the Flatirons and plains below, will be enhanced by interpretive tours by local experts in warning systems, emergency management, wildfire, and post-fire flood hazards. A new evening session will feature academic and fire department wildfire experts from Colorado Springs, some of whom were personally impacted by the Waldo Canyon blaze. Stepping back a bit, there are also sessions discussing national and local programs to change risky behavior in the wildland-urban interface.

Then there are sessions that ask if emergency managers are getting the information they need from scientists to make good decisions, whether that's to keep a business operating in severe weather, to sustain drinking water in a community enduring prolonged drought, to evacuate people who don't have cars, or, of course, to fend off zombie attack. And there are sessions that ask hard questions about national policies that might change the emergency management game, like Presidential Policy Directive 8 and the National Disaster Recovery Framework.

While there is no substitute for being a part of the conversation at the Workshop, there are a few ways to get a taste of what goes on without being here. We and the other Workshop participants will be twittering away next week, followed by Workshop reporting in the July 26 DR and the September Observer.

You'll also see us use what we learned from everyone who visited us in Broomfield through the entire year, including in the planning of the 2013 Workshop. (If you'd like to join us next time, but can't foot the bill, think about applying the Mary Fran Myers Scholarship.)