On March 18-19, 2019, NIST held a workshop on Large Outdoor Fire Modeling (LOFM) to assess the state of the art in computational fire modeling and to identify a set of research priorities for driving progress in the development of large outdoor fire models.This workshop was broadly concerned with large outdoor fires that have the potential to negatively impact communities or the environment.In this context, wildfires, wildland and wildlandurban interface (WUI) fires, post-earthquake fires, oil spill cleanup, and community-scale structural conflagrations may all be classified as large outdoor fires.The premise of the workshop was that modeling tools may assist in mitigating the large outdoor fire problem or at least in developing a better understanding of the problem.The group looked at the modeling problem in three different areas: (1) operational modeling, (2) forensic reconstruction, and (3) planning, such as prescribed burns or forest fuels management.Operational models-mostly empirical rate of spread models-were classified as running much faster than real time, with simple user interfaces.These models are useful for forecasting and generating large ensembles of fire scenarios for risk analysis.Forensic models usually need to be run at landscape scale to capture terrain features and incorporate weather effects.High-fidelity, physics-based models may be used for understanding detailed phenomena, forensics, or for planning purposes.The physics-based models tend to be limited by the level of resolution available for input parameters and by the stochastic and chaotic nature of real fire events.A survey of available models is presented in this report.Approximately 50 onsite and 20 online attendees participated in the workshop.Plenary presentations where given by Chris Lautenberger of REAX Engineering, Janice Coen of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and Rod Linn of Los Alamos National Laboratory.These lectures laid out the state of the art in operational rate of spread models, fire-weather interaction, and physics-based models, respectively, providing a baseline for workshop discussions.Details of the workshop process are given in the report.Three breakout groups, each with a balanced makeup of fire-related expertise (from first responders to high-performance computing experts), convened to address user needs, identify research gaps in outdoor fire models, and to suggest a set of grand challenge problems to focus research efforts with a ten year horizon.

Fires in the wildland urban interface are but one of the common challenges faced by today's emergency first responders. For the Yarnell Hill Fire, and any challenging emergency response event today, the following question is inevitably asked: “Was there information that could have made a difference?” What knowledge-delivered in real time to the people who need it, when they need it, the way they need it-can be made available to the incident commanders and the “boots on the ground” that will make a difference? Enter smart fire fighting. As stated by the English philosopher Francis Bacon, “Knowledge is power,” and smart fire fighting has the potential to provide fire fighters and other emergency responders with the knowledge needed to inform their decision making and their activities. Our changing world today is one of increasingly sensor-rich data; and, smart fire fighting has significant potential to use that data to make the tasks of fire fighters more effective and efficient, with direct improvement to their safety and health.

Fire costs and losses are a significant life safety and economic burden on society comprising about two percent of the United States gross domestic product. This paper presents the results of a roadmap developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in response to the U.S. fire problem and proposes ways to best reduce fire losses and costs in buildings and communities. In an effort to address the most pressing fire problems, attention is directed towards the burden of fire on communities, structures and their occupants, the fire service, and the economy in three key areas: Reducing fire risk in buildings, Advancing fire service technologies, and Reducing fire risk in wildland-urban interface (WUI) communities. The roadmap sets targets for new measurement capabilities that underpin innovation in fire-risk-reducing technologies and best practices. These advanced capabilities are required to overcome technical hurdles that stand in the way of nascent or current technologies with the potential to deliver a wide range of fire safety benefits. The roadmap stresses the measurement science needed to enable the most promising technologies that will reduce the preventable burden of fire in the three focus areas. The breadth of key technology issues ranges from reliable nuisance-free fire detection, improvements in the fire-safety design and construction of buildings and communities, to better firefighting equipment and tactics, to more effective approaches to preventing and responding to "wildland-urban interface" fires, which is a rapidly growing problem in the U.S. and many other countries. The roadmap sets short, medium and long-term goals for accomplishing the overall objective of reducing the U.S. fire burden and emphasizes the importance of science-based standards, regulatory codes, engineering tools, and best practices.

............................................................................................................................................ v List of Figures .................................................................................................................................... ix List of Tables ...................................................................................................................................... x List of Acronyms and Abbreviations .................................................................................................. xii Executive Summary .......................................................................................................................... xv Acknowledgements........................................................................................................................................ xviii 1 What This Roadmap is About .....................................................................................................1 1.1 What is a Roadmap?............................................................................................................1 1.2 Why is NIST Developing a Roadmap? ...................................................................................1 1.3 What is Measurement Science? ...........................................................................................2 1.4 Defining Roadmap Components ..........................................................................................2 2 The U.S. Fire Problem .................................................................................................................4 2.1 The Road Traveled: The Historical Fire Problem and Fire Research at NBS/NIST ....................4 2.2 The U.S. Fire Problem Today ................................................................................................9 2.3 Key Drivers of Fire Safety Progress ..................................................................................... 14 2.4 Gaps in Measurement Science ........................................................................................... 17 3 The Road Ahead ....................................................................................................................... 19 3.1 A Vision Statement ............................................................................................................ 19 3.2 The Reduced Risk of Fire in Buildings and Communities Strategy ........................................ 20 3.3 Strategic Focus Area: Reduced Fire Risk in Buildings .......................................................... 22 3.4 Strategic Focus Area: Advanced Fire Service Technologies .................................................. 42 3.5 Strategic Focus Area: Reduced Fire Risk in Wildland-urban Interface Communities ............. 56 3.6 Other Fire Types ................................................................................................................ 68

Certain commercial entities, equipment, or materials may be identified in this document in order to describe an experimental procedure or concept adequately.Such identification is not intended to imply recommendation

Along with heat, the burning of every combustible material or product* produces smoke—gases and aerosols that, in sufficiently high concentration, present hazards to people in the vicinity. Products near those already burning may also contribute to the smoke as they decompose from exposure to the heat from the fire. Predominant among the hazards, which generally occur simultaneously, are the following:

Thermal imaging cameras (TIC) are rapidly becoming integral equipment for the fire service for use in structure fires and other emergencies. The Building and Fire Research Laboratory (BFRL) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology has conducted research to establish test conditions that best represent the environment in which TIC are used. Firefighters may use TIC for field operations ranging from fire attack, search/rescue, hot spot detection, overhaul activities, to detecting the location of hazardous materials.To develop standardized TIC performance metrics and test methods that capture the harsh environment in which TIC may be used, information was collected from users, the literature, and front fire tests conducted at BFRL. A workshop was held to facilitate knowledge transfer from the fire service and TIC manufacturers. Full-scale and bench-scale experimental work focused on temperature extremes and the presence of obscuring media such as smoke, dust and water. Consolidation of fire environment data with fire fighting operations and imaging needs resulted in a set of performance metrics and test methods that relate to the conditions and tasks encountered by firefighters in structural fire fighting applications. This work is included in a new draft standard on fire service TIC. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

The use of thermal imaging cameras (TIC) by the fire service is increasing as fire fighters become more aware of the value of these tools. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) is currently developing a consensus standard for design and performance requirements of TIC as used by the fire service. The National Institute of Standards and Technology facilitates this process by providing recommendations for science-based performance metrics and test methods to the NFPA technical committee charged with the development of this standard. A suite of imaging performance metrics and test methods, based on the harsh operating environment and limitations of use particular to the fire service, has been proposed for inclusion in the standard. The Effective Temperature Range (ETR) measures the range of temperatures that a TIC can view while still providing useful information to the user. Specifically, extreme heat in the field of view tends to inhibit a TIC's ability to discern surfaces having intermediate temperatures, such as victims and fire fighters. The ETR measures the contrast of a target having alternating 25 degrees C and 30 degrees C bars while an increasing temperature range is imposed on other surfaces in the field of view. The ETR also indicates the thermal conditions that trigger a shift in integration time common to TIC employing microbolometer sensors. The reported values for this imaging performance metric are the hot surface temperature range within which the TIC provides adequate bar contrast, and the hot surface temperature at which the TIC shifts integration time.

The use of thermal imaging cameras (TIC) by the fire service is increasing as fire fighters become more aware of the value of these tools. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) is currently developing a consensus standard for design and performance requirements for TIC as used by the fire service. This standard will include performance requirements for TIC design robustness and image quality. The National Institute of Standards and Technology facilitates this process by providing recommendations for science-based performance metrics and test methods to the NFPA technical committee charged with the development of this standard. A suite of imaging performance metrics and test methods based on the harsh operating environment and limitations of use particular to the fire service has been proposed for inclusion in the standard. The performance metrics include large area contrast, effective temperature range, spatial resolution, nonuniformity, and thermal sensitivity. Test methods to measure TIC performance for these metrics are in various stages of development. An additional procedure, image recognition, has also been developed to facilitate the evaluation of TIC design robustness. The pass/fail criteria for each of these imaging performance metrics are derived from perception tests in which image contrast, brightness, noise, and spatial resolution are degraded to the point that users can no longer consistently perform tasks involving TIC due to poor image quality.

This report presents the results of the project and provides details of the response of a range of residential smoke alarm technologies in a controlled laboratory test and in a series of real-scale tests conducted in two different residential structures. The data developed in this study include measurement of temperature and smoke obscuration in addition to gas concentrations for a range of fire scenarios and residences. The results are intended to provide both insight into siting and response characteristics of residential smoke alarms and a set of reference data for future enhancements to alarm technology based on fires from current materials and constructions. Smoke alarms of either the ionization type or the photoelectric type consistently provide time for occupants to escape from most residential fires, although in some cases the escape time provided can be short. Consistent with prior findings, ionization type alarms provide somewhat better response to flaming fires than photoelectric alarms, and photoelectric alarms provide (often) considerably faster response to smoldering fires than ionization type alarms. Escape times in this study were systematically shorter than those found in a similar study conducted in the 1970's. This is related to some combination of faster fire development times for today's products that provide the main fuel sources for fires, such as upholstered furniture and mattresses, different criteria for time to untenable conditions, and improved understanding of the speed and range of threats to tenability.