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Research may help with firefighting, evacuations
FEB 20, 2024 - BY DAVID HOSANSKY

Scientists have successfully applied a pair of advanced computer models to simulate last year's wildfire that devastated the Hawaiian town of Lahaina. The development could lay the groundwork for more detailed predictions of wildfires that advance into towns and cities, eventually helping with firefighting efforts and safer evacuations as well as the design of wildfire-resistant communities. 

The study, led by the U.S. National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR), brought together a cross-disciplinary team of meteorologists with structural and environmental engineers. Their combined expertise enabled them to simulate how intense winds whipped up a brushfire and drove the flames in various directions through neighborhoods and commercial districts, igniting and destroying a variety of structures amid chaotic evacuations.

Although scientists for years have worked to improve predictions of fires that burn through forests and grasslands in various terrains, they have only recently turned to the even more difficult challenge of predicting how a fire will behave once it encounters populated areas. Such events have become more frequent in the past decade, often with tragic consequences.

"It's such a complex situation when fires move from outlying areas into a town, but this study shows that we'll have the capability in the not-too-distant future to predict fire spread within minutes of knowing the location and timing of fire ignition," said NSF NCAR scientist Timothy Juliano, the lead author of the new study. "Our approach can serve as a basis going forward to understanding how extreme weather conditions can affect fire behavior in various types of built environments and ultimately better protect vulnerable communities." 

Juliano himself witnessed the need for improved prediction when he had to evacuate his house in Louisville, Colorado, during the 2021 Marshall Fire that destroyed more than 1,000 structures.

The research team included experts from the University of Buffalo, the University of Nevada Reno, and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. The study, funded by NSF, was published in Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, a journal of the European Geosciences Union.

See full article at: Scientists focus on Lahaina Fire to improve prediction of wildland-urban fires