A review of design guidance on wildland urban interface fires

Abstract

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