Climate Change

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Climate Change

The impacts and challenges of a changing climate have been increasingly visible, most obviously in the form of new and growing threats of wildfires and extended droughts. Representative topics in this area include:

  1. Impact of climate change on fire safety
    • Role of climate change in fire hotspots
    • Risks or the likelihood of wildfire in warmer, drier and drought conditions
    • Longer fire seasons
    • Extreme ambient conditions, local demographic characteristics
  1. Impact of fires on environment
    • Environmental and health impacts of fire and fire suppression activities
    • Flame retardant/extinguishers toxicity
    • WUI fire ecology and long-term effect
    • WUI fire hazard identification and quantification
    • Ecology (post-fire effects - mortality, seasonality, climate change, resilience)
    • Remote sensing (pre- and post-burn fuels measurements)
  1. Understanding fire spread in WUI and urban fires
    • Fundamental WUI Fire behavior and fire spread
    • Impact of WUI firebrands
    • Ignition of WUI materials (Human/Natural)
    • Common characteristics between fire spread in WUI fires and urban fires
    • Smoldering combustion, and sustained burning
    • Interaction of local topography, weather, vegetation, and structures
    • Applicability of current fuel models for local species
    • Flammability data base for native/local species and new materials
    • Extreme fire behavior: trench effect, fire whirls, etc.
    • Post fire investigation and lessons learnt from WUI fires
    • Assessment of design fire scenarios
    • WUI risk management (temperature and heat exposure on people and structures)
  1. Risk assessment
    • Growth of the Wildland-Urban Interface
    • Risk assessment of WUI structures/ Design against exterior building fires
    • Risk of combustible fuels/ignition sources in WUI/wildland
    • Informal settlements in WUI
  1. Firefighting/Mitigation/Prevention
    • Building fire protection in the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI)
    • WUI firebrand ignition prevention
    • Impact of WUI on fire service
    • Fire fighter safety, Firefighting PPE and tools (Fire Service/Data)
    • Strengthening firefighter technology (aerial water/foam-based agents)
    • Reliability of
      • Water supplies
      • Suppression systems failure modes, aging, and complex systems
    • Compare/contrast tactics internationally to determine impact of firefighting/construction differences on fire growth/severity
    • Model fire department response leading to better models of
      • Reverse evacuation
      • Egress/ingress
      • Duration of water for FP systems
      • Structural collapse
      • Firefighter response recreation and training aids
    • Wildland/WUI fire damage mitigation
    • WUI fire remote sensing, warning, and notification/communication
    • Advanced tools for planning/response
    • Satellite-based information of Vegetation survey, Fire detection, Burnt area
    • Firefighter injuries (Fire Service/Risk)
  1. Safe evacuation and guidance
    • Human behavior analysis
    • Emergency management strategies/Predesignated places
    • Educating and preparing the public awareness of WUI fires
    • Training about fire prevention and safety for homeowners, land managers and fire agencies
  1. Cost analysis
    • Cost of fire events
    • Cost of suppression v/s effectiveness v/s risk
    • Cost/benefit of different types and multiple levels of FP measures
  1. Codes and standards
    • Fire safety regulations improvement/ revision of existing prescriptive codes
    • Data to support WUI codes and standards
    • WUI specific Performance-based design to meet the objectives of life and property protection
    • Existing buildings
  1. Urban Planning
    • Landscape planning tools
    • WUI resilience design tools
    • Safety distances in WUI
    • Hazard Maps
  1. Computational Model
    • Simulation & Model Prediction
    • WUI fire behavior prediction tools
    • Wildland/WUI fire modeling
    • CFD code Validation