Climate Change

Climate Change Working Group

Current Co-Chairs: Andres Valencia (University of Canterbury) & Fernando Raffan-Montoya (University of Maryland)

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. The CC Working Group works towards progress in research, education, and communications within this topic. In 2023, they wrote a white paper that explains the Climate Change landscape in relation to fire engineering, and outlines research priorities for the next 10 years.

Interested in joining the Climate Change Working Group? Explore Partnership Options.

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

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