Sensor-linked Simulation for Emergency Response

The FireGrid project defines a vision whereby computational fire simulation tools are linked to real-time information derived from sensors in a building, providing potentially valuable information to an end user in terms of the current fire conditions, and, via steered models, their possible evolution. This paper outlines the “steering” of the simulation by the sensor data, and demonstrates the potential to provide responders with more information than that available solely from the sensor measurements. A hypothetical example is described, with a coupled model of fire development and human evacuation behaviour used to predict the locations in the building where casualties are most likely to occur.