Guidance on Design and Construction of the Built Environment Against Wildland Urban Interface Fire Hazard: A Review

Abstract

Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) fires, a worldwide problem, are gaining more importance over time due to climate change and increased urbanization in WUI areas. Some jurisdictions have provided standards, codes and guidelines, which may greatly help planning, prevention and protection against wildfires. This work presents a wide systematic review of standards, codes and guidelines for the design and construction of the built environment against WUI fire hazard from North American, European, Oceanic countries, alongside with trans-national codes. The main information reviewed includes: the definition of WUI hazards, risk areas and related severity classes, the influence of land and environmental factors, the requirements for building materials, constructions, utilities, fire protection measures and road access. Some common threads among the documents reviewed have been highlighted. They include similar attempts at: (a) defining WUI risk areas and severity classes, (b) considering land factors including the defensible space (also known as ignition zones), (c) prescribing requirements for buildings and access. The main gaps highlighted in the existing standards/guidelines include lacks of detailed and widespread requirements for resources, fire protection measures, and lacks of taking into account environmental factors in detail. The main design and construction principles contained in the reviewed documents are largely based on previous research and/or good practices. Hence, the main contributions of this paper consist in: (a) systematically disseminate these guidance concepts, (b) setting a potential basis for the development of standards/guidelines in other jurisdictions lacking dedicated WUI fire design guidance, (c) highlighting gaps in existing standards/guidelines to be addressed by current and future research.

Perspetivas Sobre os Incêndios na Interface Urbano-Florestal

“…Perante a complexidade e heterogeneidade associadas ao conceito de IUF, a de nição de políticas e de medidas legislativas que a envolvam é bastante difícil, exigindo uma abordagem metódica e adaptada a cada realidade. Intini et al, (2020) propuseram uma abordagem de nida por vários módulos sequenciais (Figura 1) que permitiu analisar comparativamente as estratégias seguidas em vários países e organizações. De seguida irão desenvolver -se quatro dos setes módulos apresentados, por serem aqueles que melhor poderão contextualizar a realidade Portuguesa face à situação normativa de outros países.…”

“…FIGURA 1: Abordagem proposta por Intini et al, (2020) para analisar comparativamente as normas relativas à interface urbano -orestal seguidas em vários países e organizações.…”

Introduction to the Special Section on Global Overview of Large Outdoor Fire Standards

“…Papers were invited from the authors who delivered presentations, and upon the completion of peer-review, four papers are accepted and published in this special section of the journal Fire Technology. As part of the study discussed by Intini et al [2], WUI codes and standards across multiple continents were sampled and described in detail. Gaps and inconsistencies in global WUI codes and standards are identified in their paper.…”

Mathematical simulation of forest fire front influence on wood-based building using one-dimensional model of heat transfer

“…Consequently, the scale of catastrophic forest fires in WUI territories will increase. Therefore, it is necessary to take preventive measures, including the design and development of WUI territories [8,27].…”

“…Social damage is expressed in the number of people injured or dead in forest fires. In WUI territories, residential buildings can be involved in combustion processes [3][4][5][6][7][8]. The main impact of a forest fire is directed on the enclosing structures of a residential or industrial building [9][10][11][12][13][14].…”