Health Impacts of Climate Change-Induced Subzero Temperature Fires

Metallinou, Maria-Monika; Log, Torgrim

doi:10.3390/ijerph14070814

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 51 publications

(81 reference statements)

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“…Dry wood fire risk is easier to comprehend, and may represent a proper case for introducing risk-based emergency management. Suggestions for increasing risk understanding regarding dry home fires, i.e., to understand when fires develop fast and firefighter's turnout and driving time consumes more than the available time for controlling the fire, is outlined by Metallinou and Log [67].…”

Section: Risk Based Emergency Management?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The firefighter's preparedness may be increased by innovative practical training or low-cost simulations and serious games [68][69][70]. Calendar-based or predicted daily risk level-based spatial fleet allocations may be considered for optimal efficiency [67,71]. Otherwise, firefighters may arrive too late to handle the situation, as was the case in, e.g., the January 2014 Laerdal fire [6].…”

Section: Risk Based Emergency Management?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reducing Wooden Structure and Wildland-Urban Interface Fire Disaster Risk through Dynamic Risk Assessment and Management

Log

Vandvik

Velle

et al. 2020

ASI

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In recent years, severe and deadly wildland-urban interface (WUI) fires have resulted in an increased focus on this particular risk to humans and property, especially in Canada, USA, Australia, and countries in the Mediterranean area. Also, in areas not previously accustomed to wildfires, such as boreal areas in Sweden, Norway, and in the Arctic, WUI fires have recently resulted in increasing concern. January 2014, the most severe wooden town fire in Norway since 1923 raged through Laerdalsøyri. Ten days later, a wildfire raged through the scattered populated community of Flatanger and destroyed even more structures. These fires came as a surprise to the fire brigades and the public. We describe and analyze a proposed way forward for exploring if and how this increasing fire incidence can be linked to concomitant changes in climate, land-use, and habitat management; and then aim at developing new dynamic adaptive fire risk assessment and management tools. We use coastal Norway as an example and focus on temporal changes in fire risk in wooden structure settlements and in the Norwegian Calluna vulgaris L. dominated WUI. In this interface, the fire risk is now increasing due to a combination of land-use changes, resulting in large areas of early successional vegetation with an accumulation of biomass, and the interactive effects of climatic changes resulting in increased drought risk. We propose a novel bow-tie framework to explore fire risk and preventive measures at various timescales (years, months, weeks, hours) as a conceptual model for exploring risk contributing factors and possibilities for risk management. Ignition is the top event of the bow-tie which has the potential development towards a fire disaster as a worst case outcome. The bow-tie framework includes factors such as changes in the built environment and natural habitat fuel moisture content due to the weather conditions, WUI fuel accumulation, possibly improved ecosystem management, contribution by civic prescribed burner groups, relevant fire risk modeling, and risk communication to the fire brigades and the public. We propose an interdisciplinary research agenda for developing this framework and improving the current risk understanding, risk communication, and risk management. This research agenda will represent important contributions in paving the road for fire disaster prevention in Norway, and may provide a model for other systems and regions.

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Section: Risk Based Emergency Management?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Risk Based Emergency Management?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Reducing Wooden Structure and Wildland-Urban Interface Fire Disaster Risk through Dynamic Risk Assessment and Management

Log

Vandvik

Velle

et al. 2020

ASI

Self Cite

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“…Adiabatically heated, dry, and still very cold, air further heated to indoor conditions resulted in a dry wooden structure very susceptible to fast fire development. This left the firefighters with very limited possibilities for fire intervention [13]. Official investigations of the mentioned three 2014 fires did, however, not mention the dry state of indoor combustibles as a risk factor [10,12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling Indoor Relative Humidity and Wood Moisture Content as a Proxy for Wooden Home Fire Risk

Log¹

2019

Sensors

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Severe wooden home conflagrations have previously been linked to the combination of very dry indoor climate in inhabited buildings during winter time, resulting in rapid fire development and strong winds spreading the fire to neighboring structures. Knowledge about how ambient conditions increase the fire risk associated with dry indoor conditions is, however, lacking. In the present work, the moisture content of indoor wooden home wall panels was modeled based on ambient temperature and relative humidity recorded at meteorological stations as the climatic boundary conditions. The model comprises an air change rate based on ambient and indoor (22 °C) temperatures, indoor moisture sources and wood panel moisture sorption processes; it was tested on four selected homes in Norway during the winter of 2015/2016. The results were compared to values recorded by indoor relative humidity sensors in the homes, which ranged from naturally ventilated early 1900s homes to a modern home with balanced ventilation. The modeled indoor relative humidity levels during cold weather agreed well with recorded values to within 3% relative humidity (RH) root mean square deviation, and thus provided reliable information about expected wood panel moisture content. This information was used to assess historic single home fire risk represented by an estimated time to flashover during the studied period. Based on the modelling, it can be concluded that three days in Haugesund, Norway, in January 2016 were associated with very high conflagration risk due to dry indoor wooden materials and strong winds. In the future, the presented methodology may possibly be based on weather forecasts to predict increased conflagration risk a few days ahead. This could then enable proactive emergency responses for improved fire disaster risk management.

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“…The fires are usually associated with combustible spill accidents and fires in hot climates. Recently, subzero-temperature fires have, however, caught increased attention from researchers who have found these fires to be extremely severe and fast developing [ 4 ]. The Lærdalsøyri fire in Western Norway 18–19 January 2014 destroying 40 buildings and threatening the whole village including the historical Old Lærdalsøyri [ 5 ], may serve as an example.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Consumer Grade Weather Stations for Wooden Structure Fire Risk Assessment

Log

2018

Sensors

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During January 2014, Norway experienced unusually cold and dry weather conditions leading to very low indoor relative humidity (RH) in inhabited (heated) wooden homes. The resulting dry wood played an important role in the two most severe accidental fires in Norway recorded since 1923. The present work describes testing of low cost consumer grade weather stations for recording temperature and relative humidity as a proxy for dry wood structural fire risk assessment. Calibration of the weather stations relative humidity (RH) sensors was done in an atmosphere stabilized by water saturated LiCl, MgCl2 and NaCl solutions, i.e., in the range 11% RH to 75% RH. When calibrated, the weather station results were well within ±3% RH. During the winter 2015/2016 weather stations were placed in the living room in eight wooden buildings. A period of significantly increased fire risk was identified in January 2016. The results from the outdoor sensors compared favorably with the readings from a local meteorological station, and showed some interesting details, such as higher ambient relative humidity for a home close to a large and comparably warmer sea surface. It was also revealed that a forecast predicting low humidity content gave results close to the observed outdoor weather station data, at least for the first 48 h forecast.

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Health Impacts of Climate Change-Induced Subzero Temperature Fires

Cited by 4 publications

References 51 publications

Reducing Wooden Structure and Wildland-Urban Interface Fire Disaster Risk through Dynamic Risk Assessment and Management

Reducing Wooden Structure and Wildland-Urban Interface Fire Disaster Risk through Dynamic Risk Assessment and Management

Modeling Indoor Relative Humidity and Wood Moisture Content as a Proxy for Wooden Home Fire Risk

Consumer Grade Weather Stations for Wooden Structure Fire Risk Assessment

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