Fire performance of timber: review for use in wildland-urban interfaces

Fire in the Wildland–Urban Interface

In this chapter we provide an overview of the socio-economic and ecological effects and trends of wildfire in the WUI, methods for assessing wildfire risk in the WUI, approaches to managing the wildfire problem including fuels management, home construction and design, and community action programs. This overview is combined with two case studies analyzing wildfire risk and the use of prescribed...

Scientific and social challenges for the management of fire-prone wildland--urban interfaces

At their worst, fires at the rural–urban or wildland–urban interface cause tragic loss of human lives and homes, but mitigating these fire effects through management elicits many social and scientific challenges. This paper addresses four interconnected management challenges posed by socially disastrous landscape fires. The issues concern various assets (particularly houses, human life and biod...

The Fire Performance of Exposed Timber Panels

Cross-laminated timber is increasingly being used in the construction of high-rise buildings due to its simple manufacturing system. In term of fire resistance, cross-laminated timber panels are promoted as having excellent fire resistance, comparable to that of non-combustible materials and to heavy timber construction, due to the ability of thick wood assemblies to char slowly at a predictabl...

Wildland Fire Suppression and Land Development in the Wildland/Urban Interface

Forecasting Diurnal Variation in Fire Intensity for Use in Wildland Fire

The notion that wildland fire activity varies throughout the day as dictated by diurnal variations in fire weather conditions (Schroeder and Buck 1970), dead fuel moisture (Rothermel et al. 1986) and fuel temperature (Countryman 1966) is a relatively wellentrenched fact in wildland fire management circles as evident by its treatment in operational manuals and textbooks (Gaylor 1974; Moberly et ...