Wildfire interface risk to communities

The effect of forest fires on fire risk in communities is rarely defined or assessed on a relative scale. While fire modelling of structural fires is reasonably well developed for certain fire scenarios, the modelling of wildfires is in its infancy. In his recent SFPE articles Alexander Maranghides presented a new indexing approach to assessing the wild fire risk to communities. The method takes the various parameters that determine fire spread in wild fire situations- such as topography, ground cover, separation, construction etc.- and assigned it a relative index. This becomes a tool to prioritise management of fire risk from external fires.

Alexander has worked for 7 years at the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), on the Navy's Halon Replacement Program. Between 1995 and 2000 he was the Test Director for NRL Real Scale Halon Replacement Test Program where he worked on the development of a holistic approach to Halon replacement fire protection system design. In that capacity he analyzed current US Navy Fleet fire suppression system design criteria and firefighting doctrine. He is the co-inventor, with Dr. Ronald Sheinson of NRL, of the Water Spray Cooling System (WSCS), a patented gaseous agent suppression enhancing system used to protect shipboard compartments in Navies around the world.

Between 2000 and 2002 Mr. Maranghides managed the activities of GEO-CENTERS, Inc. at NRL and was responsible for operations, government contracts and over 100 employees.

Since 2002 he has managed the NIST Large Fire Laboratory (LFL). In his current position, he is responsible for the LFL and for the yearly execution of over 200 fire experiments. His technical fields of expertise include Halon replacements, fire suppression, large scale fire testing and the wild land urban interface. His recent SFPE article attracted some interest and may have importance to the assessment of fire risk where climate change may be increasing the fire risk over time.

At a time of high fire risk across BC this is an opportune time to review the latest techniques for quantifying fire risk in areas such as North Vancouver with a high density of housing and forest interface areas combined with challenging topography.

Date: September 30, 2014
Time: Registration and Reception 5:30pm
Location: False Creek Yacht Club (1661 Granville Street)
Cost: Members - $30; Non-members $35. Please bring cash or a cheque payable to BC Society of Fire Protection Engineers to cover the cost of dinner.
Registration Deadline: September 26, 2014

Free parking is available in the Yacht Club parking lot.