Guest Editorial: Wildfires, Fire Science and Fire Safety Engineering

Abstract

Guillermo Rein*, School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh,Edinburgh, UK‘‘A case can be made for fire being, next to the life processes,the most complex of phenomena to understand’’Prof Hoyt Hottel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, (1903–1998) [1].This editorial goes to press just as the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commis-sion (2009 VRC) releases its final report [2]. The Commission conducted an exten-sive investigation into the causes, preparation for, response to and the impact ofthe massive wildfires that burned throughout the Australian state of Victoria inlate January and early February 2009. The greatest tragedy was that of Black Sat-urday (7 February) that caused 173 fatalities, exceeding the loss of life from anyprevious wildfire in the country. The commission estimates the cost of the disasterto be more than US$3.7 billion (e2.9 billion) in terms of property, infrastructureand environmental damages alone. The report is released openly and worldwide toensure that lessons from the disaster are clearly identified, learnt and shared withthe international community.As one reads the report it is clear that, whilst the scope of both wildfire and firesafety research need to expand, it is also vital that researchers from these twofields better integrate their knowledge and develop closer collaboration if we areto manage the fire problem effectively. Born out of this same necessity, and pre-ceding the 2009 VRC report, this special issue of Fire Technology attempts tobridge the gap between the research of fire science in the built and natural envi-ronments.For this issue we considered 31 original submissions from which 14 were even-tually accepted for publication. This task would not have been possible withoutthe effort and motivation of the 75 reviewers who volunteered their time to theissue.The papers cover a wide range of geographical locations with particular empha-sis on Australia, USA, UK, and the Mediterranean countries, and go from thefundamental to the applied sides of the research spectrum. Topics include rapidfire spread and eruptive behaviour (Viegas and Simeoni, invited review), spotting