Fire Response Research Articles

Modeling fire station establishment of industrial area using geo-spatial science

Fire stations have to be situated carefully; in an emergency situation, the fire department should be able to reach its destination within time. The study exasperated to integrate Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) with Weighted Overlay analysis (WOA) in GIS to present a model for fire station location planning. The case study is carried out in the Asansol Sadar Subdivision of Paschim Bardhaman District, West Bengal, India. The study shows that there are 364.569 km2 of High-Risk Areas (most congested Settlements, industrial areas, and Coal Mining), 59.62 km2 of Moderate Risk, and 422.348 km2 of Low Risk. The results of this research introduce five sites that are most appropriate for establishing the new stations, which cover all the areas based on the fire response time, rules, and regulations. This analytical process considered densely populated shares of the cities and also the industrial neighborhoods in the Jamuria, Kulti – Barakar, Burnpur, Chittaranjan, and Churulia as mostly suitable zones for the new fire departments. The major advantages of the new proposed sites are accessibility to the accident-prone areas as per response time, setting in the most populated area of the zone, and the high potential for interventions, which can reduce the risk and loss of life and wealth.

Full-scale experimental study on evacuation behavior characteristics of underwater road tunnel with evacuation stairs under blocked conditions

In recent decades, with the rapid development of the economy and tunnel construction technology, an increasing number of underwater road tunnels have been constructed in China. Underwater road tunnels play a crucial role in transportation hubs that connect cities and regions. Underwater tunnels have strong closures, which makes evacuation and rescue difficult. Therefore, personnel evacuation in emergencies, such as fires, has become a critical problem that needs to be solved. A full-scale evacuation experiment in an underwater shield tunnel with 188 participants was conducted to explore the characteristics of personnel evacuation behavior under the blocked condition of an underwater shield tunnel in the case of fire. The time of fire detection and personnel response, alighting time of passengers from vehicles, opening time of the stair-cover plate, evacuation capacity of stairs, and relationship between the evacuation speed and age and gender of participants were obtained. The experimental results showed that the driver’s actions had a strong demonstrative effect, and the improvement of the driver’s efficiency in handling emergencies could promote the evacuation process. The average alighting time per bus passenger was 1.41 ± 0.53 s, and proper personnel guidance, good road conditions, and increased tunnel familiarity reduced it. The average evacuation capacity of the stairs was 33.3 ± 4.1 person/min. When the proportion of older adults increased from 0 % to 10.64 %, the evacuation capacity of stairs decreased by approximately 8.5 %. The evacuation capacity of stairs can be significantly improved through reasonable organization and evacuation guidance. However, as the number of people gathered at the stair entrance gradually increased, the “bottleneck” effect became significant, and the evacuation capacity was primarily controlled by its structure at this time. The average evacuation speed for male and female was the same in good road conditions, about 1.39 m/s, but decreased significantly in blocked conditions, to 0.72 m/s and 0.48 m/s, respectively. Further, it decreased to 1.27 m/s and 1.23 m/s, respectively, in the secure channel, which may be related to the psychological state of relaxation and slackening and the increase in road pavement roughness.

Mechanosensory encoding in ex vivo muscle-nerve preparations.

Our objective was to evaluate an ex vivo muscle-nerve preparation used to study mechanosensory signalling by low threshold mechanosensory receptors (LTMRs). Specifically, we aimed to assess how well the ex vivo preparation represents in vivo firing behaviours of the three major LTMR subtypes of muscle primary sensory afferents, namely type Ia and II muscle spindle (MS) afferents and type Ib tendon organ afferents. Using published procedures for ex vivo study of LTMRs in mouse hindlimb muscles, we replicated earlier reports on afferent firing in response to conventional stretch paradigms applied to non-contracting, that is passive, muscle. Relative to in vivo studies, stretch-evoked firing for confirmed MS afferents in the ex vivo preparation was markedly reduced in firing rate and deficient in encoding dynamic features of muscle stretch. These deficiencies precluded conventional means of discriminating type Ia and II afferents. Muscle afferents, including confirmed Ib afferents were often indistinguishable based on their similar firing responses to the same physiologically relevant stretch paradigms. These observations raise uncertainty about conclusions drawn from earlier ex vivo studies that either attribute findings to specific afferent types or suggest an absence of treatment effects on dynamic firing. However, we found that replacing the recording solution with bicarbonate buffer resulted in afferent firing rates and profiles more like those seen in vivo. Improving representation of the distinctive sensory encoding properties in ex vivo muscle-nerve preparations will promote accuracy in assigning molecular markers and mechanisms to heterogeneous types of muscle mechanosensory neurons.

A Concept Study on Design Alternatives for Minimizing Accident Consequences in Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships

Autonomous ships, also known as maritime autonomous surface ships (MASS), are vessels that use artificial intelligence and robotics technologies to navigate independently. Due to their advanced technological capabilities, MASS is expected to play a significant role in the future of the shipping industry. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) is currently developing international standards for MASS classification, including accident avoidance technologies. However, the issue of how to mitigate the consequences of accidents involving autonomous ships has not been sufficiently addressed. Therefore, this study focuses on alternative design solutions and emergency response systems for MASS to properly control emergency situations and minimize the impact of accidents, such as flooding and fire on board. The goal is to efficiently address such accidents, especially in situations where the number of people on board is significantly reduced or the ship is being operated automatically or remotely, and to promptly detect and respond to such situations from a remote location. This paper investigates the possibility of modifying the design of the air conditioning system to delay flooding by considering a reduction in the number of crew members in order to prevent flooding. To prevent the spread of fire, the study examines early blockage measures for areas where air can enter. Flood and fire response systems were configured to be executed manually or automatically based on the results of presimulated scenarios defined in thousands of accident scenarios. Each accident propagation and response situation proposes an alternative using a coded shortcut key utilizing graphic symbols of international standard ISO 23120.

Ultra-sensitive fan-folded thermally expandable surface reduced graphene oxide strips for fire early warning response

The increasingly frequent fire has brought serious harm to the safety of human life and property. The development of fire early warning materials with super sensitive temperature response has always been an urgent need in the field of fire safety. Herein, a surface reduced graphene oxide strip (RGOS) was fabricated by a simple chemical reduction and used as a fire early warning sensor via the facile fan-folding method. By controlling the reduction time of graphene oxide (GO) in the system of HI/CH3COOH/H3PO2, phosphorus-containing RGOS with different reduction degrees can be obtained. Compared with the pure GO strips, the RGOS exhibits improved flame retardancy. Structural observation and thermal analysis show that the introduction of phosphorus and the reduced graphene oxide (RGO) layer formed by surface reduction effectively inhibit the thermal degradation of the internal GO layer after encountering a high-temperature attack. More importantly, different from the previous GO-based sensors that rely on resistance transformation to generate fire alarm response, the fan-folded RGOS can rapidly expand to trigger a conductive contact after encountering high temperature or flame, thus providing an ideal fire early alarm response (∼3 s for 150 ℃, ∼0.5 s for flame). This work suggests that the RGOS is promising in the development of advanced materials as smart sensors for fire early warning.

Emergency Response Demand and Supply: A GIS-Based Network Analysis for Fire Station’s Service Coverage Delineation in Kano Metropolis, Nigeria

Inadequate fire emergency response infrastructure and a lack of defined service coverage remain key barriers to timely fire disaster response. This study is applied research which employed geospatial techniques and aimed at examining fire disaster emergency response demand and supply relationships with the view to delineating service coverage and locating more facilities for optimum coverage in Kano metropolis. Locations of the existing fire stations and fire incidents (2009-2019) were gathered through GPS surveying. Network data set were generated. Nearest Neighbor and Network Analysis (origin-destination, service coverage and location-allocation) were conducted to determine emergency response demand and supply relationships, service coverage area delineation and identifying best site for allocating new facilities within the metropolis respectively. It was found that no clearly defined service coverage exist as emergency response supply takes more than 4-8 times the NFPA travel standard, and with a great deal of overlapping response patterns. New service coverage areas were proposed and best sites for 8 firefighting facilities identified for optimum coverage. It is concluded that emergency fire disaster response demand and supply relationships within Kano metropolis is imbalanced, with extensive recurrent demand especially within the core area served by overstretched and inefficient response supply. This, therefore, implies continuous exposure of lives and properties to the menace of fire disaster in Kano metropolis.
 Keywords: Fire Facilities; Location-allocation; Response Demand; Response Supply; Service Coverage
 
 Copyright (c) 2023 Geosfera Indonesia and Department of Geography Education, University of Jember
 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share A like 4.0 International License

Analisis Pelaksanaan Program Tanggap Darurat Kebakaran di Suku Dinas Penanggulangan Kebakaran dan Penyelamatan Kotamadya Jakarta Timur Tahun 2021

Introduction: Fire is a fire that cannot be controlled, meaning that it is beyond human ability and desire. Fire hazard is a hazard caused by a potential threat and degree of exposure to flames starting from the start of the fire to the spread of the fire, smoke and gas produced. Objective: To understand and also know the management of fire emergency response management at the East Jakarta City Fire and Rescue Service. Method: This research uses qualitative research with an observational approach. Primary data sources were collected through interviews and direct field observations. Secondary data was obtained from the fire emergency system literature as well as supporting data on the general description of the fire emergency program for the East Jakarta City Fire Department. Results: The East Jakarta City Fire and Rescue Service has a fire protection system, emergency response procedures in the event of a fire, technical guidelines for emergency action plans in the event of a fire and an organization/emergency response team. For fires, the East Jakarta City Fire and Rescue Service already have an active fire protection system in the form of a fire detection system and a fire extinguishing system. Conclusion: The East Jakarta City Fire and Rescue Service have fulfilled almost all the criteria for a passive fire protection system, namely the availability of hydrants around the building and canals for fire barriers with the following conditions: Active Protection System for fire detectors that function properly, fire alarms that function properly well, sprinklers that work properly, several fire extinguishers don’t work and are outside the cabinet and hydrants that don't work. Passive emergency door protection system that is not functioning properly, there is no emergency lighting system, the fire ladder is not functioning, there are no directional signs and there are means of self-evacuation.

Influence of amyloid beta on impulse spiking of isolated hippocampal neurons.

One of the signs of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the formation of β-amyloid plaques, which ultimately lead to the dysfunction of neurons with subsequent neurodegeneration. Although extensive researches have been conducted on the effects of different amyloid conformations such as oligomers and fibrils on neuronal function in isolated cells and circuits, the exact contribution of extracellular beta-amyloid on neurons remains incompletely comprehended. In our experiments, we studied the effect of β-amyloid peptide (Aβ1-42) on the action potential (APs) generation in isolated CA1 hippocampal neurons in perforated patch clamp conditions. Our findings demonstrate that Aβ1-42 affects the generation of APs differently in various hippocampal neurons, albeit with a shared effect of enhancing the firing response of the neurons within a minute of the start of Aβ1-42 application. In the first response type, there was a shift of 20-65% toward smaller values in the firing threshold of action potentials in response to inward current. Conversely, the firing threshold of action potentials was not affected in the second type of response to the application of Aβ1-42. In these neurons, Aβ1-42 caused a moderate increase in the frequency of spiking, up to 15%, with a relatively uniform increase in the frequency of action potentials generation regardless of the level of input current. Obtained data prove the absence of direct short-term negative effect of the Aβ1-42 on APs generation in neurons. Even with increasing the APs generation frequency and lowering the neurons' activation threshold, neurons were functional. Obtained data can suggest that only the long-acting presence of the Aβ1-42 in the cell environment can cause neuronal dysfunction due to a prolonged increase of APs firing and predisposition to this process.

Post-disaster (im)mobility aspiration and capability formation: case study of Southern California wildfire

Scholarship on the environmental dimensions of migration demonstrates the complex interplay of climatic and non-climatic factors which combine to create a potential for migration. Yet in times of environmental crisis or change, not everyone aspires to or is capable of moving to reduce their vulnerability. When, why, and how populations vulnerable to hazard risks decide not to migrate remains a significant gap in our understanding of the migration—environment relationship. Analysis of data from 38 qualitative interviews shows how Los Angeles County residents—after surviving the 2018 Woolsey Fire—developed aspirations to stay and/or rebuild, depending on the attachments and meanings associated with their communities. This paper also seeks to clarify the concept of capabilities to stay by considering separately the capabilities to return and rebuild from the capabilities to cultivate preparedness. Many who stayed also worked to strengthen community resilience to alleviate concerns of future wildfire risk. Some residents expressed individual commitments to stay and defend homes during future fires, while well-equipped volunteer fire brigades have proliferated in more affluent areas. Community mobilizations pressured local government and fire services to address the perceived institutional failure during previous fire responses and fostered feelings of collective efficacy among residents which increased their confidence to remain in high wildfire risk communities.

Quail on fire: changing fire regimes may benefit mountain quail in fire-adapted forests

BackgroundFire-adapted forests in western North America are experiencing rapid changes to fire regimes that are outside the range of historic norms. Some habitat-specialist species have been negatively impacted by increases in large, high-severity fire, yet, the responses of many species to fire, especially at longer time scales, remain ambiguous. We studied the response of a widely distributed species, the mountain quail (Oreortyx pictus), to wildfire across the Sierra Nevada of California, because its habitat selection patterns provided an opportunity to evaluate potentially contrasting responses among habitat specialists.ResultsWe used passive acoustic monitoring across > 22,000 km2 of the Sierra Nevada and Bayesian hierarchical occupancy modeling to conduct the first study of the effects of habitat, fire severity, and time since fire (1–35 years) on the occupancy of a little-understood management indicator species, the mountain quail. Mountain quail responded positively to high-severity fire and neutrally to low-moderate-severity fire. Occupancy of quail peaked 6–10 years after high-severity fire and remained high even 11–35 years after an area burned at high severity.ConclusionsOur work demonstrates that high-severity fire is strongly and positively related to mountain quail occupancy, which is a markedly different response than previously studied species that are also of management concern in the Sierra Nevada. Taken together, our results suggest that mountain quail may actually be “winners” in the face of altered fire regimes in the Sierra Nevada. Given the forecasted intensification of large, severe wildfires in many fire-adapted forests, understanding the ecology and nuanced fire responses of species beyond those that have been historically considered is an important and time-sensitive effort. The relationship between mountain quail and high-severity fire is a reminder that there will be both winners and losers as the dynamics of wildfire change in the era of climate change.

CFD-Based Validation Study on the Fire Prevention Wisdom of Ancient Village Houses in Western Hunan

Ancient villages are precious architectural treasures that have been protected from fire hazards for centuries through traditional fire prevention strategies. However, research on traditional fire response strategies is limited, with existing studies mainly focusing on climate response strategies, conservation, and renewal. No prior research has revealed the quantitative fire response strategies used for ancient buildings. This paper takes the first ancient village in western Hunan, High-Chair village, as an example, and it (1) assesses the fire risk of High-Chair village; (2) determines the traditional fire response strategies of the ancient village, including fire prevention culture, residential layout, wall forms, and fire resistant materials; and (3) uses CFD simulation to reveal and verify the science and rationale of the traditional patio layout and hill wall forms. The study suggests utilizing CFD simulation to quantitatively assess and validate fire response strategies. Such knowledge of fire prevention can provide fire mitigation solutions for rural construction.

Domain-incremental learning for fire detection in space-air-ground integrated observation network

Deep learning-based fire detection models are usually trained offline on static datasets. For continuously increasing heterogeneous sensor data, incremental learning is a resolution to enable incremental updates of models. However, it still encounters the challenge of the stability-plasticity dilemma on cross-domain data. In this paper, we propose a Dynamic Equilibrium Network (DENet) to achieve cross-domain fire detection on heterogeneous images captured by spaceborne, airborne, and terrestrial sensors. It can learn more flame and smoke features from cross-domain data in a balanced manner by imposing dynamic equilibrium constraints on the self-knowledge distillation model with deeply-supervised loss. It adopts learnable loss weights to adaptively adjust the importance of the old and new datasets and focuses on rebalancing the weight bias based on dynamic equilibrium constraints guided by the number of samples. Model performance is evaluated on the Flame And Smoke Detection Dataset (FASDD) consisting of computer vision (CV) and satellite remote sensing (RS) images, as well as the FLAME dataset consisting of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) images. Extensive experiments demonstrated that DENet performs better generalization and equalization on CV, RS, and UAV data than other classical incremental learning methods, and significantly narrows the performance gap toward joint training. It outperforms the well-performing PODNet model by +7.71% mAP@0.5 on the old dataset while maintaining the same good performance on the new dataset. In the ablation experiments, our model outperforms the No Bias model by +27.13% mAP@0.5 on the old dataset, and by +2.77% mAP@0.5 on the new dataset. Given its excellent equalization capability on heterogeneous data, DENet can provide effective support for cross-domain fire detection. This study will provide an important reference for collaborative fire warning, emergency response, and government decision-making in a space-air-ground integrated observation network.

Large scale fire resistance tests of prestressed continuous steel–concrete composite beams to evaluate the effects of geometric imperfections

Little attention has been devoted to exploring the effect of geometric imperfections under fire conditions. To bridge this knowledge gap, this paper presents findings from five large scale fire tests on prestressed continuous steel–concrete composite beams (PCCBs) designed to investigate the effect of initial geometric imperfection (IGI) on the fire resistance of PCCBs. The examined parameters include several IGI modes, load levels, and prestress levels. Various fire responses were monitored and recorded during these tests, such as cross-sectional temperature rise, mid-span deflection, prestress in the cable strands, and side-support reactions. The results of these fire tests indicate that PCCBs with the initial mode of flexural–torsional buckling at the middle support applied as an IGI had larger mid-span deflection and lower critical temperature relative to that of the beams without IGI. The same beams also underwent a larger degree of relaxation in prestress levels, thus reaching failure at a faster pace. Our findings also indicate that while the end-support reactions were redistributed when exposed to fire, the side-support reactions decreased at the first stage of fire exposure and then gradually increased toward the final stage of the fire exposure. Evidently, for PCCBs with IGI, the side-support reaction towards the end of the fire tests is larger than the initial reaction. To complement the conducted fire tests, a series of finite element (FE) models were developed to further study the effect of IGIs in terms of the fire response of PCCBs.

A YOLOv6-Based Improved Fire Detection Approach for Smart City Environments.

Authorities and policymakers in Korea have recently prioritized improving fire prevention and emergency response. Governments seek to enhance community safety for residents by constructing automated fire detection and identification systems. This study examined the efficacy of YOLOv6, a system for object identification running on an NVIDIA GPU platform, to identify fire-related items. Using metrics such as object identification speed, accuracy research, and time-sensitive real-world applications, we analyzed the influence of YOLOv6 on fire detection and identification efforts in Korea. We conducted trials using a fire dataset comprising 4000 photos collected through Google, YouTube, and other resources to evaluate the viability of YOLOv6 in fire recognition and detection tasks. According to the findings, YOLOv6's object identification performance was 0.98, with a typical recall of 0.96 and a precision of 0.83. The system achieved an MAE of 0.302%. These findings suggest that YOLOv6 is an effective technique for detecting and identifying fire-related items in photos in Korea. Multi-class object recognition using random forests, k-nearest neighbors, support vector, logistic regression, naive Bayes, and XGBoost was performed on the SFSC data to evaluate the system's capacity to identify fire-related objects. The results demonstrate that for fire-related objects, XGBoost achieved the highest object identification accuracy, with values of 0.717 and 0.767. This was followed by random forest, with values of 0.468 and 0.510. Finally, we tested YOLOv6 in a simulated fire evacuation scenario to gauge its practicality in emergencies. The results show that YOLOv6 can accurately identify fire-related items in real time within a response time of 0.66 s. Therefore, YOLOv6 is a viable option for fire detection and recognition in Korea. The XGBoost classifier provides the highest accuracy when attempting to identify objects, achieving remarkable results. Furthermore, the system accurately identifies fire-related objects while they are being detected in real-time. This makes YOLOv6 an effective tool to use in fire detection and identification initiatives.

Программный робот-проектировщик для выбора автоматических установок пожаротушения

Автоматические установки пожаротушения (АУП) широко применяются для защиты пожароопасных объектов, при этом выпускается большое количество АУП разных типов. Актуальная задача для проектировщиков – выбор АУП, обеспечивающих эффективную защиту объекта. Для выбора оптимального варианта важно провести сравнительную оценку возможных типов АУП. Для решения этой задачи предлагается использовать программный робот-проектировщик RPA. Разработана автоматизированная программа выбора АУП, которая выполняет функции робота-проектировщика, а пользователь ведет с ним диалог по исходным данным, оценке и выбору предлагаемых вариантов. Automatic fire extinguishing systems (AFESs) are the basis for the protection of fire-hazardous facilities. Currently, a large number of AFESs of various types are produced. The issue of selecting AFES is of significant importance because it influences both the cost of the technical means used and the efficiency of the facility protection. Recommendations for the choice of automatic fire extinguishing system are given in the VNIIPO paper “Selecting the type of automatic fire extinguishing systems”. The calculation of technical means and efficiency indicators is carried out for each type of AFES for the comparative evaluation in accordance with these recommendations. The calculations are entered manually and require considerable time with the assistance of specialists. The estimated figures used are difficult to compare and are very approximate for the comparative analysis, because they are based on average data. The human factor has a significant impact on the objectivity of the evaluation. Automation of calculations, according to the established methods of calculation, would greatly simplify the selection of the AFES and make the choice objective. The use of estimated figures based on actual data increases the reliability of the evaluation significantly, including the starting of fire extinguishing response time and the response time of fire extinguishing process, being the most optimal criteria for evaluating the efficiency. The possibility of using AFES, accepted in SP 485.1311500.2020, should also be taken into account, including the rate of combustion propagation of combustible materials used. During the evaluation it is reasonable to take into account the damage from a fire, determined, for example, by the area exposed to fire. Reliability is the most important indicator of the AFES efficiency. Nowadays, program-controlled RPA robots are widely used to perform the control functions of typical processes in a dialogue with a human. The challenge was set to create a program-controlled robot for selecting the AFES, according to the initial data of the protected facility, being the same for all used AFESs. The robot performs an independent automatic evaluation of technical means and selection of the optimal AFES according to comparable estimated figures, based on actual data for all AFESs simultaneously. An automated program for selecting AFES was developed to accomplish this task. The program performs the functions of a program-controlled robot (Certificate of state registration No. 2022664536), and is presented in the Internet web application available at: https://firerobots.ru/calculate. A unified approach based on the general requirements of the code of practice SP 485.1311500.2020 makes it possible to compare different fire extinguishing systems. The initial data of the protected facilities entered into the program, and the system makes calculations of technical means, and determines the estimated figures for effective fire extinguishing. The proposed technical solutions make it possible to create an AFES selection system using a service program that performs the functions of a design robot, including: interactive input of information, automated calculations in accordance with regulatory requirements and calculation formulas, receiving the necessary objective evaluation data on efficiency and pricing, selection of the optimal AFES from a number of AFESs used for the protection of facilities

Fire responses by bird guilds and species in heathy dry forests in central Victoria, Australia

Predicted increases in fire frequency and extent are being realised across Australia, bringing changes to the fire regime which may influence the availability of essential resources required by birds. However, few studies have examined either the impacts of fire frequency on birds or the impacts from both wildfire and planned burns, combined. Birds were surveyed eight times across 84 sites in heathy dry forests in central Victoria, south-east Australia, from 2012 to 2014. Fire history records were retrieved from the 1970’s onwards, the time from which accurate planned burn records were kept. We developed mixed models to investigate how birds responded to time-since-fire and fire frequency, analysing total bird abundance, ten foraging guilds and 30 individual species. We found distinct responses by all modelled guilds and species to time-since-fire, along with evidence for responses to fire frequency. The greatest shifts in species’ abundances occurred during the first ten years post fire, with bird species commonly present across the stages greater than ten years since fire. For total bird abundance there was no statistically detectible difference between recently burnt forest (0-6 months) and other age classes. However, some guilds showed a significant drop in abundance in newly burnt vegetation (e.g. bark foragers, damp ground insectivores, those that feed on seeds close to the ground, tall shrub foragers). It is with guild and species’ responses that more differences across vegetation age classes became apparent. Significant increases in abundance were apparent in both the regrowth and new growth vegetation age classes, compared with older habitat (e.g. canopy foragers, damp ground insectivores, tall shrub foragers); open ground foragers were especially common in post-fire regrowth but then significantly declined. Other responses were more complex, with species’ preferences reflecting their foraging ecology. Some birds showed preferences across two age classes: sites that were young post-fire regrowth (6 months–2.5 years since fire) along with sites of old habitat (>35 years since fire), (e.g. Crimson Rosella, Scarlet Robin, Sulphur-crested Cockatoo), while some ground-foraging species became scarce in dense new-growth vegetation that appears 2.5–10 years post fire (e.g. Australian Magpie, Laughing Kookaburra and White-winged Chough). Such species may deserve specific management strategies to maintain populations in forests where substantial areas are burnt by wildfire or planned burns, over short periods of time. The model for total bird abundance showed a significant fire frequency response with birds preferring sites twice burnt within 35 years (e.g. bark and canopy-foraging guilds). Four guilds demonstrated a preference for sites frequently burnt, increasing in abundance as number of burns increased (nectarivores, open-ground foragers, seeds in trees foragers, tall shrub foragers). In contrast, two species appeared to prefer sites that had experienced low fire frequencies, a response not common to their guilds. Laughing Kookaburra (carnivore) and White-winged Chough (forages on open ground among trees) generally declined in abundance with increasing fire frequency.

Silicone passive sampling used to identify novel dermal chemical exposures of firefighters and assess PPE innovations.

A plethora of chemicals are released into the air during combustion events, including a class of compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). PAHs have been implicated in increased risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease, both of which are disease endpoints of concern in structural firefighters. Current commercially available personal protective equipment (PPE) typically worn by structural firefighters during fire responses have gaps in interfaces between the ensemble elements (e.g., hood and jacket) that allow for ingress of contaminants and dermal exposure. This pilot study aims to use silicone passive sampling to assess improvements in dermal protection afforded by a novel configuration of PPE, which incorporates a one-piece liner to eliminate gaps in two critical interfaces between pieces of gear. The study compared protection against parent and alkylated PAHs between the one-piece liner PPE and the standard configuration of PPE with traditional firefighting jacket and pants. Mannequins (n=16) dressed in the PPE ensembles were placed in a Fireground Exposure Simulator for 10min, and exposed to smoke from a combusting couch. Silicone passive samplers were placed underneath PPE at vulnerable locations near interfaces in standard PPE, and in the chamber air, to measure PAHs and calculate the dermal protection provided by both types of PPE. Silicone passive sampling methodology and analyses using gas chromatography with mass-spectrometry proved to be well-suited for this intervention study, allowing for the calculation and comparison of worker protection factors for 51 detected PAHs. Paired comparisons of the two PPE configurations found greater sum 2-3 ring PAH exposure underneath the standard PPE than the intervention PPE at the neck and chest, and at the chest for 4-7 ring PAHs (respective p-values: 0.00113, 0.0145, and 0.0196). Mean worker protection factors of the intervention PPE were also greater than the standard PPE for 98% of PAHs at the neck and chest. Notably, the intervention PPE showed more than 30 times the protection compared to the standard PPE against two highly carcinogenic PAHs, dibenzo[a,l]pyrene and benzo[c]fluorene. Nine of the detected PAHs in this study have not been previously reported in fireground exposure studies, and 26 other chemicals (not PAHs) were detected using a large chemical screening method on a subset of the silicone samplers. Silicone passive sampling appears to be an effective means for measuring dermal exposure reduction to fireground smoke, providing evidence in this study that reducing gaps in PPE interfaces could be further pursued as an intervention to reduce dermal exposure to PAHs, among other chemicals.

Is early evacuation the best and only strategy to protect and mitigate the effects of forest fires in WUI areas? A qualitative research on the residents’ response during the 2021 forest fires in NE Attica, Greece

Greece, a South-East European country located in the Mediterranean basin, faces every year disastrous and occasionally fatal forest fires. During the 2021 fire season and after the 2018 Mati forest fire, the authorities warned people to evacuate early at almost every forest fire which threatened WUI areas throughout the country, irrespective of the fire's severity. Fortunately, during these events, no loss of human life occurred. However, residents and the municipalities' civil protection officials expressed strong opposition to this policy claiming that is not the most efficient for the protection of property. The qualitative research presented here aims to explore the residents' fire risk perception, assess critical issues regarding early evacuation and the extent to which alternatives could be utilized in Greece. The findings, confirm that while early evacuation is the safest option during a forest fire offers maximum safety to human life, it is not the only viable option. Early evacuation is not a one-size-fits-all solution since there will always be residents who decide to stay and protect, or are forced to stay due to the fire conditions. It is anticipated that the analysis presented here will be used to improve fire response outcomes.

Design a safe firefighting time (SFT) for major fire disaster emergency response

A major fire disaster is hazardous to both occupants trapped in the built environment and firefighters during the firefighting operation. Though various construction codes, technologies, and facilities have enhanced occupants’ evacuation in fire, insufficient effort is made to ensure a safe firefighting and rescue environment for firefighters, and their safety is not effectively guaranteed in the process of firefighting. To fill this gap, this work proposes a new concept of safe firefighting time (SFT) in fire safety design, combining the features of firefighting and evacuation behavior. By referring to the available and required safe egress time, ASFT (Available Safe Firefighting Time) and RSFT (Required Safe Firefighting Time) are defined with detailed calculation methods. As a demonstration, safe firefighting time including ASFT and RSFT is evaluated in a fire safety performance-based design of a tunnel. Apart from fire safety design, SFT could contributes to smart firefighting supported by emerging technologies. The framework for future fire safety design and the research needs in smart firefighting with SFT are discussed combining intelligent approaches such as IoT infrastructures and cloud services. In summary, this study introduces the safe firefighting time and application approaches in fire safety design that extends the current fire-safety design framework and lays a foundation for smart firefighting for engineers, firefighters and policymakers.

The Prediction of Fire Disaster Using BIM-Based Visualization for Expediting the Management Process

As buildings become larger and more complex, fire disaster management is of great concern. A building’s fire response and/or rescue system plays a pivotal role in minimizing fire victims and loss. To improve the current fire disaster management, it is important to link building (static) information, i.e., structural elements, fire escapes, and openings, with the fire (dynamic) information. When a building fire occurs, real-time fire information is required to be effectively linked with the on-site building information because the fire rescue teams, in most cases, are unfamiliar with the buildings. This study has proposed a Building Information Model (BIM)-based fire disaster management process which can digitally track the building data and the dynamic fire data simultaneously. To expedite this algorithm, an application program, i.e., Smart Fire Rescue Management (SFRM) has been developed using Revit™ software. A real-case project has been applied to evaluate the feasibility of the system. An expert survey has also been conducted to analyze the practical applicability. As a result, the system has been evaluated as exceptional, but it is necessary to upgrade the application from the practitioner’s viewpoint. The SFRM contributes to expediting the conventional disaster management process by enhancing the efficiency of the building fire response and/or rescue system.