Fire Risk Mitigation Research Articles

Intensification of Silviculture Techniques in Community Forest Management to Realize the Acceleration of SDG's Point 13: Handling Climate Change

Global climate change has become an urgent issue affecting land quality, especially forest areas. Forests are important in mitigating climate change by absorbing carbon and storing greenhouse gases. Community forests, which are managed by communities on private land, have great potential to reduce carbon emissions. However, community forest management is still suboptimal due to limited knowledge of the application of effective silvicultural techniques. This study aims to provide recommendations for community forest management by intensifying silvicultural techniques, such as plant spacing and plant species selection, to reduce fire risk and support climate change mitigation. The method used was a systematic review of 30 relevant scientific articles. The literature used came from books and national and international journal articles accessed through Google Scholar, Springer and ScienceDirect databases. Articles were selected through a selection process based on the relevance of the title, abstract, and overall content. The results showed that a planting distance of 4×4 meters or 4×3 meters is the most optimal for tree growth and allows the implementation of an agroforestry system. In addition, plant species such as Swietenia macrophylla and Gliricidia sepium proved effective as fire barriers due to their evergreen characteristics that can reduce the amount of litter as fire fuel. In conclusion, intensive silvicultural techniques can increase the effectiveness of community forest management in sequestering carbon, reducing the risk of forest fires, and supporting climate change mitigation efforts. This research provides recommendations that community forest managers can apply to improve environmental sustainability.

Urban Fire Risk Hot Spot Assessment and Green Spaces: A Geospatial Analysis of Fire Risk Mitigation in Nagpur

Urban Fire Risk Hot Spot Assessment and Green Spaces: A Geospatial Analysis of Fire Risk Mitigation in Nagpur

New Frontiers for Raw Wooden Residues, Biochar Production as a Resource for Environmental Challenges

Biochar has gained significant interest in the agroforestry sector, mainly because of its ability to improve soil quality and sequester carbon in the atmosphere. Among the feedstocks of possible use for biochar production is biomass, understood as products and residues of plant origin from agriculture and forestry. The quality of the biomass used for biochar production is important because the physicochemical characteristics of the final product depend on it. This review examines the use of biochar produced from forest wastes and its impact on agriculture, forest ecosystems and the environment in general. This work demonstrates that the use of biochar not only improves agricultural productivity and production, but also that the sustainable management of the environment and forests and contributes to forest fire risk mitigation. The authors, examining the physico-chemical properties of biochar produced by forest waste, noted that the most critical variable is the process (pyrolysis temperature, residence time and heating rate), but the type of biomass used as a raw material and the forest species used also have a significant impact in determining the characteristics of the final product.

Australia’s 2019/20 Black Summer fire weather exceptionally rare over the last 2000 years

Australia’s record-breaking 2019/20 Black Summer fire weather resulted from a combination of natural and anthropogenic climate factors, but the full range of natural variability in fire weather is unknown. We reconstruct southeast Australian fire weather over the Common Era based on an East Antarctic ice core sea-salt aerosol record. This record reflects the Southern Ocean synoptic-scale weather patterns and Antarctic stratospheric polar vortex strength that pre-condition elevated fire danger over southeast Australia. We show that the (a) intensity of the 2019/20 fire weather was unprecedented since 1950 and (b) frequency of above average fire weather seasons from 2010–2020 has only occurred once since 1950 (over 1977–1987), but there are analogues for similar extreme fire danger caused by natural variability in the 2000-year reconstruction. This highlights the need for fire risk mitigation that considers the full range of plausible natural variability in Australia’s fire weather as well as anthropogenic forcing.

Fire Risk Mitigation Strategies for Electric and Hydrogen Vehicle Car Parks

As the use of eco-friendly vehicles, such as electric and hydrogen vehicles, is rapidly increasing, the related infrastructure is also expanding, and they have become common in parking areas. The fire safety design of a car park is based on the existing data of internal combustion engine vehicles; therefore, the characteristics of eco-friendly vehicles must be reflected. This study investigated the heat release rate of internal combustion engine vehicles, electric vehicles, and hydrogen vehicles using real-scale fire test data and analyzed the effects of curb weight and battery capacity. The fire growth rate and maximum heat release rate of electric and hydrogen vehicles were similar to those of internal combustion engine vehicles, except for the batteries and hydrogen gas, which are the energy sources of electric and hydrogen vehicles, respectively. When ignited from the battery of an electric vehicle, the fire grew rapidly. When the thermally activated pressure relief device was activated in the storage vessel of a hydrogen vehicle, the heat release rate instantaneously increased to 14.5 MW. To improve fire safety in car parks, the curb weight and fire resistance structure must be designed to reflect the increase in plastic interior materials and battery capacity of vehicles, and firefighting facilities must be installed based on vehicles with greater fire severity.

Developing an enhanced thermal radiation model through a Semi-A priori approach

The accurate prediction of thermal radiation is crucial for effective fire safety assessment and the development of proactive prevention strategies. This article presents an innovative approach to thermal radiation modelling through the integration of a semi-a priori methodology. The proposed model combines the strengths of a priori modelling and data-driven approaches, utilising the well-established single point source model as a foundation. The proposed model undergoes refinement and development using experimental data involving propane gas fires, ethanol pool fires, and isopropyl alcohol pool fires. These datasets serve as fitting data, enabling the model to improve its accuracy and performance. The refined model's performance is further assessed through the validation process using experimental data and simulation data. Experimental data from different fire scenarios, i.e., acetone and methanol pool fires, are utilised for the validation. Additionally, the estimated heat flux values generated by the proposed model and the single point source model are also compared with simulation results obtained from Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS), specifically for heptane and methane pool fires. The findings of this research highlighted the enhanced accuracy and reliability of the proposed model in predicting thermal radiation behaviour. This research offers insights into thermal radiation modelling, providing valuable information for fire safety practitioners and researchers in enhancing fire risk assessment and mitigation strategies. By combining physical principles with empirical data, the proposed approach offers an alternative method for thermal radiation prediction in diverse fire scenarios.

A DEMATEL-based approach of multi-criteria evaluation for urban fire and emergency facilities

With the increasing complexity of rapidly growing urban environments and the interactions of humans and socioeconomic and political systems, the global urgency for applying sustainable risk management planning strategies, comprehensively for urban fire risk reduction activities, becomes increasingly evident in most fire-prone megacities worldwide such as Istanbul. The current research aims to examine the complex interrelationships and levels of influence among the criteria previously determined for optimally selecting new urban infrastructure for fire and emergency services in Istanbul as part of the fire risk mitigation planning efforts applying the multi-criteria decision analysis method of the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL). Useful insights were generated from the study by constructing an intelligible structural model visually in the form of a digraph involving analysis of causal relationships among criteria and their directional influences, as well as corresponding degrees of strength. The findings reveal that high population density is the most critical criterion followed by the density of hazardous materials criterion in effectively planning new urban facilities for fire and emergency services, thus significantly influencing and impacting all the other criteria, while the distance-to-earthquake risk criterion does not influence any other criteria and consequently is not essential in the planning procedure. The DEMATEL model results were validated in terms of levels of criteria significance using previous studies and shown to be in high correlation. In this regard, these contextual relationships established would contribute toward an integrated fire risk mitigation planning policy formulation in urban environments through the engagement of all decision-makers across various backgrounds and disciplines such as urban and city planners, engineers, emergency and risk managers and administrators, socioeconomic and environmental experts, fire service industry practitioners, and local community leaders.

Mapping opportunities for the use of land management strategies to address fire risk in Europe

Many parts of Europe face increasing challenges managing wildfires. Although wildfire is an integral part of certain ecosystems, fires in many places are becoming larger and more intense, driven largely by climate change, land abandonment, and changes in fuel management with important socioeconomic, environmental, and ecosystem services consequences for Europe. In order to envision a comprehensive fire risk mitigation strategy for Europe, a spatial assessment of opportunities to manage fuels at the landscape-scale is needed. Our study explored the suitability of three land management strategies (LMS)—herbivory, mechanical fuel removal, and prescribed burn—which can create more heterogenous fuelscapes, thereby reducing an element of fire risk. We created suitability maps for each of the LMS using adoption factors identified in a systematic literature review (n = 123). We compared these maps with areas of historical fire occurrence as a proxy for fire risk to prioritize key areas for intervention. We found that over a quarter of Europe was suitable for multiple LMS within areas of greater fire risk, creating opportunities for concurrent and synergistic use of the strategies. Options were more limited in areas of southern Europe, where prescribed burn was found to be uniquely viable amongst the LMS evaluated. Opportunities were also restricted in some areas of high fire risk in northern Europe, where herbivory was found to be the only suitable LMS. Our findings take a wide-view of fuel management to target landscape-scale decision making focused on reducing fire risk. However, many other factors must be taken into account to successfully manage fuels at local scales, including the socio-cultural appropriateness of the LMS, the viability of incentive schemes, and possible trade-offs with other management goals, such as carbon storage and biodiversity.

Wildland–Urban Interface: Definition and Physical Fire Risk Mitigation Measures, a Systematic Review

Due to the associated fire risk, the wildland–urban interface (WUI) has drawn the attention of researchers and managers from a range of backgrounds. From a land management point of view, it is important to identify the WUI to determine areas to prioritise for fire risk prevention. It is also important to know the fire risk mitigation measures available to select the most appropriate for each specific context. In this systematic review, definitions of the WUI were investigated and physical mitigation measures for reducing the risk of fire were examined from a land management perspective. The PRISMA 2020 Statement was applied to records published until 31 December 2022 and retrieved from the Web of Science, Scopus, and other research engines. A total of 162 publications from scientific journals and the grey literature were scrutinised and selected for analysis. Only publications providing an original definition of the WUI or proposing physical measures to reduce fire risk at the interface were retained, while those relating to emergency management and social perception were not considered. The risk of bias was reduced by internal cross-assessment by the research team. Definitions of the WUI (n = 40 publications) changed according to the research objective, varying broadly in identification of the anthropogenic and the wildland components of the interface. Terminology varied according to the definition, and the term wildland–human interface (WHI) was found to be more comprehensive than WUI. Methodological definitions of the interface ranged from using aggregated data through to identification of the buildings at risk in the interface with considerable precision. Five categories of physical fire risk mitigation measures (n = 128 publications) were identified: clearance distances, landscaping, wildland fuel management, land planning, and buildings design and materials. The most effective measures were those applied at early stages of urban development, and maintenance of assets and vegetation is crucial for preparedness. This review represents an analysis of scientific evidence on which land managers can base their actions to reduce the fire hazard risk in the WUI. The number of studies investigating the WUI is considerable, but experimental studies and quantitative results are scarce, and better communication and coordination among research groups and land management agencies is advisable. This systematic review was not registered.

Assessment of wildfires forecast performance in Albania: Case study

The harmful impacts of climate change caused by wildfires are substantially harming the people of mainland Europe, as well as damaging species biodiversity and the ecosystem. It can be minimised by improving the effectiveness of fire risk forecasting and mitigation strategies. The aim of this paper was to investigate the accuracy of forest fire forecasts in Albania produced by the FWI (Fire Weather Index) system. During the summer of 2022, observations and data were collected on expected and actual fires in the prefectures of Albania, which were previously divided into four categories according to the level of fire risk: high, moderate, low, and zero. It was determined that, in the summer of 2022, Albania happened a grand total of 620 wildfires. The data were analysed using two indicators: the probability of fire occurrence for a particular prefecture and the number of fires per prefecture. The analysis revealed varying degrees of accuracy in fire predictions across different prefectures, with higher precision observed in high-risk regions but diminishing as the risk level decreased. The most dependable indicator of forecast accuracy, reaching 75%, was observed in high-risk areas during the month of August. Predicting fire localization within moderate-risk zones consistently achieved results above 50% but fell short of the 60% threshold. Overall, the results confirm the effectiveness of using data to predict the probability of fires for prefectures with a high and increased level of the relevant threat. This will make it possible to more effectively deploy and mobilise the resources needed to overcome them and substantially reduce the losses associated with them

Fire Incidents, Trends, and Risk Mitigation Framework of Electrical Vehicle Cars in Australia

Electric Vehicles (EVs) offer a promising solution to reduce the environmental impact compared to internal combustion engine vehicles. However, EV adoption in Australia has been hindered by concerns over fire safety. This study aims to comprehensively analyse EV fire risks and trends in Australia, including those related to charging stations and lithium-ion batteries. The research utilises secondary data from various reputable sources to develop statistical forecasting models, which estimate that Australia will have approximately 1.73 million EVs by 2030 and 15.8 million by 2050. The study reveals an average EV fire frequency of six fires per million EVs in Australia, aligning with the global average. Consequently, Australia is expected to experience 9 to 10 EV fire incidents annually in 2030, 37 to 42 EV fire incidents annually in 2040, and 84 to 95 EV fire incidents annually in 2050. To address these risks, an EV fire risk control framework is considered to identify and recommend appropriate measures for life safety, lithium-ion batteries, charging, EV handling, and EV locations. This research provides vital evidence for regulators, policymakers, and the fire industry to effectively manage EV fire risks and enhance preparedness for the growing EV market in Australia.

Integrating Rangeland Fire Planning and Management: The Scales, Actors, and Processes

Research continually adds to our understanding of the ecological factors and biophysical processes driving frequent, large-scale fires on Great Basin rangelands in the western United States. Yet even with advances in forecasting rangeland fire probabilities and likely ecological outcomes of fire, it remains difficult for individuals, communities, or organizations to coordinate their actions across jurisdictions and at an ecologically relevant scale to address collective wildfire risk. In this forum, we discuss current institutional arrangements that perpetuate scale mismatches in this system; that is, institutional objectives, authorities, and capacities that limit coordinated actions to mitigate collective wildfire risk. We make a case for fireshed-scale coordination via rangeland Fireshed Councils, proposed rangeland and fire planning and management units that have both biophysical and social relevance to individuals and organizations engaged in fire risk mitigation. A rangeland Fireshed Council offers a venue for diverse group members to mix and match their respective rules and tools to navigate institutional barriers and capacity challenges in new ways. Operating in a collective arrangement at this scale aims to ensure that an individual's or entity's activities transcend traditional modes of planning (i.e., parcel-scale), complement concurrent management activities, and translate to fire-resilient landscapes and human communities. Rangeland Fireshed Councils will require resources and support from high governance levels for sustainability and legitimacy and relative autonomy to determine how best to support local needs.

Country-Level Modeling of Forest Fires in Austria and the Czech Republic: Insights from Open-Source Data

Forest fires are becoming a serious concern in Central European countries such as Austria (AT) and the Czech Republic (CZ). Mapping fire ignition probabilities across countries can be a useful tool for fire risk mitigation. This study was conducted to: (i) evaluate the contribution of the variables obtained from open-source datasets (i.e., MODIS, OpenStreetMap, and WorldClim) for modeling fire ignition probability at the country level; and (ii) investigate how well the Random Forest (RF) method performs from one country to another. The importance of the predictors was evaluated using the Gini impurity method, and RF was evaluated using the ROC-AUC and confusion matrix. The most important variables were the topographic wetness index in the AT model and slope in the CZ model. The AUC values in the validation sets were 0.848 (AT model) and 0.717 (CZ model). When the respective models were applied to the entire dataset, they achieved 82.5% (AT model) and 66.4% (CZ model) accuracy. Cross-comparison revealed that the CZ model may be successfully applied to the AT dataset (AUC = 0.808, Acc = 82.5%), while the AT model showed poor explanatory power when applied to the CZ dataset (AUC = 0.582, Acc = 13.6%). Our study provides insights into the effect of the accuracy and completeness of open-source data on the reliability of national-level forest fire probability assessment.

Modelling and Mapping Urban Vulnerability Index against Potential Structural Fire-Related Risks: An Integrated GIS-MCDM Approach

Identifying the regions with urban vulnerability to potential fire hazards is crucial for designing effective risk mitigation and fire prevention strategies. The present study aims to identify urban areas at risk of fire using 19 evaluation factors across economic, social, and built environment-infrastructure, and prior fire rates dimensions. The methods for “multi-criteria decision making” (MCDM) include the Analytic Hierarchy Process for determining the criteria’s importance and weight of the criteria. To demonstrate the applicability of this approach, an urban vulnerability index map of Ardabil city in Iran was created using the Fuzzy-VIKOR approach in a Geographic Information System (GIS). According to the findings, about 9.37 km2 (31%) of the city, involving roughly 179,000 people, presents a high or very high level of risk. Together with some neighbourhoods with low socioeconomic and environmental conditions, the city centre is the area where the level of risk is more significant. These findings are potentially very meaningful for decision-makers and authorities, providing information that can be used to support decision-making and the implementation of fire risk mitigation strategies in Ardabil city. The results of this research can be used to improve policy, allocate resources, and renew urban areas, including the reconstruction of old, worn-out, and low-income urban areas.

Enhancing Fire Resilience of Cable-Supported Bridges: Current Knowledge and Research Gaps

Fires are increasingly recognized as one of the major hazards causing damage to bridges and disruption in their operational continuity. As a transportation hub, cable-supported bridges are particularly critical to social sustainability and economic development. However, ensuring the resilience of cable-supported bridges in unexpected fire events has arisen as a challenge in recent years due to the lack of available standards and guidance for practitioners. In this context, this paper presents an up-to-date review of the fire resilience enhancement methods for cable-supported bridges and proposes research needs for impending decades. Representative fire incidents and the concerns of bridge managers are analyzed to define the critical fire scenarios that need to be considered in future fire-resistant designs. The fire performance of cable-supported bridges whose cables, girders, and pylons are exposed to fires are analyzed respectively. To enhance the fire resilience of cable-supported bridges, this paper compiles probabilistic methods, including fire risk evaluation and mitigation based on identified vulnerable bridges, and deterministic methods, including active and passive fire protection measures. This paper reveals that guidance on the fire resilience of cable-supported bridges should be further improved with regard to aspects including the fire performance of cable systems, the ability of cable-supported bridges to provide continued service in fires, risk- and cost–benefit-based fire resistance design, multi-level fire damage determination, and emergency response strategies.

Flash point of binary and ternary monoterpene mixtures: Experimental and modeling

The flash point (FP) of pure or mixtures of flammable substances is an important indicator in designing fire risk mitigation and prevention measures in the chemical and oil industry. Although FP data of fuel constituents and blends are often found in the literature, studies addressing other flammable mixtures, such as essential oils (EOs) and their constituents (terpenes and terpenoids), are scarce. EOs are aromatic, volatile liquid mixtures extracted from plant matrices that present diverse biological properties and find numerous applications in the food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and fragrance industries. In this work, experimental FP measurements of binary and ternary mixtures of four structurally diverse monoterpenes (carvone, eucalyptol, limonene, and linalool), widely found in different EO profiles, were carried out. Besides, the Liaw-UNIFAC model and the COSMO-RS model were used to calculate the FP data of the studied mixtures, resulting in global root-mean-square deviations (RMSD) of 2.0 K and 0.7 K, respectively. Both models deliver better predictions than the ideal approach (RMSD = 2.4 K) for the studied systems, demonstrating the importance of considering nonideal effects when estimating the FP data of terpene mixtures. These results provide essential information for accurate process safety and fire risk assessment in the EO industry.

Integrating Rangeland Fire Planning and Management: The Scales, Actors, and Processes

Research continually adds to our understanding of the ecological factors and biophysical processes driving frequent, large-scale fires on Great Basin rangelands in the western United States. Yet, even with advances in forecasting rangeland fire probabilities and likely ecological outcomes of fire, it remains difficult for individuals, communities, or organizations to coordinate their actions across jurisdictions and at an ecologically relevant scale to address collective wildfire risk. In this forum, we discuss current institutional arrangements that perpetuate scale mismatches in this system (i.e., institutional objectives, authorities, and capacities that limit coordinated actions to mitigate collective wildfire risk). We make a case for fireshed-scale coordination via rangeland Fireshed Councils, a proposed rangeland and fire planning and management unit that has both biophysical and social relevance to individuals and organizations engaged in fire risk mitigation. A rangeland Fireshed Council offers a venue for diverse group members to mix and match their respective rules and tools to navigate institutional barriers and capacity challenges in new ways. Operating in a collective arrangement at this scale aims to ensure that an individual's or entity's activities transcend traditional modes of planning (i.e., parcel-scale), complement concurrent management activities, and translate to fire-resilient landscapes and human communities. Rangeland Fireshed Councils will require resources and support from high governance levels for sustainability and legitimacy, as well as relative autonomy to determine how best to support local needs.

Resilience of Industrial Buildings to Wildland-Urban Interface Fires

Forest fires have affected the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) in the last years with greater violence, causing damage to houses, industrial and commercial buildings. Businesses face the same fire hazard as houses but with a much greater potential due to labour interruption, job losses, and tax revenue impacts. In Canada, forest fires affected oilsand camps in 2011 and 2016, disrupting oil and gas production and damages of billions of Canadian Dollars. Camp Fire in 2018, the most destructive forest fire to date in the United States, destroyed houses, commercial buildings and other structures. In Portugal, the 2017 Large Forest Fires caused damages to almost 600 industrial buildings in the WUI and million euros losses. Assessing post-fire damage provides valuable information for future planning, fire risk mitigation, and improving fire resilience in the built environment. Considering WUI fires’ economic and social impact in industrial areas is essential to better understand this particular situation. In this sense, following the forest fires of 2017 in Portugal, a field research was conducted to assess the type of industrial building damages endured and know which construction systems were employed in their repair. The assessment considered the type of structure, materials used in facades and roofs, type of openings, ground waterproofing of uncovered areas, and material storage usage. There was also a verification of the materials used after the rehabilitation. This last stage concludes that building fire regulation needs to change for mitigating the risk of industrial buildings getting destroyed by Forest Fires in the WUI.

Managing nature-based solutions in fire-prone ecosystems: Competing management objectives in California forests evaluated at a landscape scale

California’s cap-and-trade compliance offset market incentivizes forest managers to maintain elevated carbon stocks. It provides these incentives without enforcing standardized fire mitigation practices despite many projects being located in fire prone regions. Here, we evaluated the difference between management actions in California forests that participated in the carbon offset market versus those that engaged with state programs to reduce wildfire risk via fuel reduction treatments. Using remotely sensed data from the California Forest Observatory and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, we compared the vertical forest structure and vegetation canopy trends on forest offsets with forests that are receiving fuel treatment. We found California forests managed for carbon under the Improved Forest Management (IFM) program by the California Air Resources Board had higher levels of biomass than forests managed for fire risk reduction as indicated by 2016 lidar-estimated fuel loads. In addition, IFM-participating forests did not reduce their fuel loads between 2016 and 2020, whereas lands receiving grants for fuel management did, indicating that on average, the IFM projects were not engaging in fuel reduction efforts. However, despite the differences in fuel management between IFM projects and active fuel treatments, we found that both types of management saw a declining trend in vegetation greenness between 2015 and 2021. While declining greenness is expected of active fuel treatments associated with vegetation removal, such a trend in the case of IFM indicates additional wildfire risk. Managing forests for long-term carbon storage and sequestration requires consideration of fire risk mitigation. Given the little evidence of fuel reduction in the first decade of IFM projects implementation we question whether the century-long duration of carbon stocks in these offsets is realistic. We recommend that policymakers reevaluate the incentives directed at carbon stock preservation or expansion to better encompass the growing wildfire risk in California.

The Impact of Reduced Fire Risk Cigarettes Regulation on Residential Fire Incidents, Mortality and Health Service Utilisation in New South Wales, Australia.

Smoking materials are a common ignition source for residential fires. In Australia, reduced fire risk (RFR) cigarettes regulation was implemented in 2010. However, the impact of this regulation on residential fires is unknown. This paper examines the impact of the RFR cigarettes regulation on the severity and health outcomes of fire incidents in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, from 2005 to 2014. Fire department data from 2005 to 2014 were linked with ambulance, emergency department, hospital, outpatient burns clinic and mortality datasets for NSW. Negative binomial regression analysis was performed to assess the changes to fire incidents’ severity pre- and post-RFR cigarettes regulation. There was an 8% reduction in total fire incidents caused by smokers’ materials post-RFR cigarettes regulation. Smokers’ materials fire incidents that damaged both contents and structure of the building, where fire flames extended beyond the room of fire origin, with over AUD 1000 monetary damage loss, decreased by 18, 22 and 12%, respectively. RFR cigarettes regulation as a fire risk mitigation has positively impacted the residential fire incident outcomes. This provides support for regulation of fire risk protective measures and bestows some direction for other fire safety policies and regulations.