Roxborough park community wildfire evacuation drill: data collection and model benchmarking

Wildfires are increasing in scale, frequency and longevity, and are affecting new locations as environmental conditions change. This paper presents a dataset collected during a community evacuation drill performed in Roxborough Park, Colorado (USA) in 2019. This is a wildland-urban interface community including approximately 900 homes. Data concerning several aspects of community response were collected through observations and surveys: initial population location, pre-evacuation times, route use, and arrival times at the evacuation assembly point. Data were used as inputs to benchmark two evacuation models that adopt different modelling approaches. The WUI-NITY platform and the Evacuation Management System model were applied across a range of scenarios where assumptions regarding pre-evacuation delays and the routes used were varied according to original data collection methods (and interpretation of the data generated). Results are mostly driven by the assumptions adopted for pre-evacuation time inputs. This is expected in communities with a low number of vehicles present on the road and relatively limited traffic congestion. The analysis enabled the sensitivity of the modelling approaches to different datasets to be explored, given the different modelling approaches adopted. The performance of the models were sensitive to the data employed (derived from either observations or self-reporting) and the evacuation phases addressed in them. This indicates the importance of monitoring the impact of including data in a model rather than simply on the data itself, as data affects models in different ways given the modelling methods employed. The dataset is released in open access and is deemed to be useful for future wildfire evacuation modelling calibration and validation efforts.This study was supported by National Institute of Standards and Technology, U.S. Department of Commerce under award 60NANB18D255. The EMS was developed by the University of Cantabria within the ASSISTANCE project funded by the European Union’s H2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 832576

The need for behavioral theory in evacuation modeling

This paper posits the need for a complete, comprehensive conceptual model about human behavior in fire evacuations. This would be of intrinsic value to improve training, education, and future data collection efforts, but would also allow for a complete behavioral representation to be embedded within simulation tools. This paper begins by discussing the current, separate theories or “behavioral facts” extracted from research on evacuations from building fires. Then, the paper discusses the methods used by current computer evacuation models to simulate these “behavioral facts” and the limitations of these methods. Last, the paper argues for the inclusion of a comprehensive behavioral conceptual model in computer evacuation models, specifically by highlighting the benefits of behavioral theory for evacuation models and providing examples of social theories used to predict whether people will evacuate from disasters in communities

A review of design guidance on wildland urban interface fires

Fires in the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) areas is a worldwide problem, which is gaining more importance over time due to climate change and constructions in the WUI areas. Standards and guidelines may greatly help the activities of planning, prevention and protection against wildfires. Some countries/States/local communities can already rely on existing standards and guidelines, while other areas, even if potentially subject to wildfires, not. This work presents a systematic review of standards and guidelines belonging to selected countries/States/local communities in the Western world, namely: North American countries (USA, Canada), European countries (France, Italy), Oceanic countries (Australia, New Zealand), and trans-national codes. The main information reviewed includes: hazard definition and severity classes, land factors (vegetation, defensible space and topographic factors), building materials and construction requirements, utilities (resources, firefighters, planning, outreach), fire protection measures, environmental factors (weather, fire history), and access requirements. A comparative analysis regarding the main similarities/differences between all the considered standards and guidelines was performed after the review process. This comparative analysis may be useful for the further development and/or revision of (novel) standards/guidelines for planning, preventing and protecting against fires in WUI areas