The goal of this proposal is to support state/local governments, fire response entities, and other stakeholders in developing their response strategies to WUI or similar no-notice evacuation events…

The University of Maryland, College Park will receive $120,047 under a Cooperative Agreement from the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Measurement and Engineering Research and Standards program to develop wildland urban interface fire response strategies. Using data from California's 2018 Camp Fire, the university will combine agent-based modeling of human behavior with fire dynamics and evacuation modeling within a semantic framework. This novel approach aims to evaluate evacuation and fire hardening strategies for no-notice wildfire events through simulation of different community archetypes. Outcomes include a new wildland urban interface fire model and a policy evaluation framework to help state governments and other stakeholders develop emergency response plans addressing sudden wildfires. The two-year award runs from May 1, 2022 to April 30, 2024.

Activities

This proposal will combine human behavior, relevant features of the community, and characteristics of the wildland urban interface fire threats for situations that result in short- or no-notice evacuations. The project will use agent-based modeling, fire dynamics modeling, and evacuation modeling within a semantic model. The research will leverage the unique NIST data set from the camp fire that include firefighting survey data, GIS data, cell phone (location) data, and other communications data. The semantic modeling framework is highly novel and could be a transformative approach to investigating these interactions. The proposed framework will be designed to evaluate different community archetypes. A new WUI fire model will capture unique features for WUI fire spread, which is important as WUI fire modeling is a critical unfilled need for the industry.

Expected outcomes

The project will simulate fire hardening and evacuation strategies to establish a policy evaluation framework that is accessible and useful to policymakers and the public through the advancement of concepts such as connectivity, accessibility, reliability, resiliency, and vulnerability, among others as they relate to WUI. The research will facilitate state governments and other stakeholders in developing their emergency response strategies for addressing no-notice wildfires.

Intended beneficiaries

US citizens in areas at risk from wildfires and the public safety officials charged with citizen safety.

Subrecipient activities

The recipient does not intend to subaward funds.