SFPE Foundation WUI

The Advanced WUI curriculum is the result of fire service needs assessments which identified a lack of advanced WUI community risk mitigation training for fire departments with WUI fire experience. Developed over 18 months, the Advanced WUI Fire Risk Assessment & Mitigation Curriculum offers engineering tools and resources on three topics, each presented in a 4-hour module: 

The initial needs assessment workshop also identified the value of additional training opportunities beyond the 12 hours of advanced WUI curriculum. This led to the development of three free, on-demand webinars created exclusively for the SFPE Foundation by subject matter experts. The three webinars are available through SFPE’s learning management system. Successful completion of a knowledge test will award 1-1.5 Professional Development Hours. The webinars are: 

The Advanced WUI Fire Risk Assessment & Mitigation Curriculum is the result of the collaborative efforts of two project teams, a Project Advisory Panel including fire engineering industry and fire service experts, and four pilots hosted by fire departments in California, Colorado, Texas, and Washington, plus two virtual pilots to evaluate the course curriculum and webinar content.   

The two project teams who developed the new Advanced WUI curriculum are: 

The Engineering Risk Consultant team evaluated the Advanced WUI Fire Risk Assessment & Mitigation Curriculum, both from a technical standpoint and to identify the potential risk reduction achieved from the training implementation. They concluded that “the curriculum has significant potential to improve wildfire preparedness and risk reduction capacity when delivered to audiences positioned to influence community planning, mitigation, prevention, and preparedness activities.” The training demonstrates strong potential to contribute to risk reduction by:  

“With the development of these Advanced WUI Topics courses, the SFPE Foundation continues to expand and deepen our partnership with FEMA, the National Fire Academy, and the U.S. Fire Service,” explains SFPE Foundation Executive Director, Leslie Marshall, PhD. “We remain committed to working with fire service personnel to understand their training needs and to identify and deliver in areas where fire protection engineering research, knowledge, and resources can help close critical gaps and make our communities safer and more resilient.” 

In the next phase, the SFPE Foundation will seek funding sources and partnerships to bring the advanced WUI curriculum to fire service locations across the U.S. Dr. McAllister and her team “look forward to future deliveries of this course, as we believe it will have a positive impact on the fire service and its risk reduction and mitigation efforts.” 

If your fire department would like to learn more about the SFPE Foundation’s WUI curriculum and how to customize the available training to best fit your Wildland-Urban Interface educational needs, please contact Lisa VanBuskirk, WUI Initiatives Program Manager at lvanbuskirk@sfpefoundation.org.