Presenter: Sam Manzello, National Institute of Standards and Technology
Description: Wind-driven firebrand showers are a major cause of structural ignition in Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) fires. To address this problem, a new firebrand research area targeted on quantifying structure vulnerabilities to wind-driven firebrand showers has been developed. This type of firebrand research was never possible prior to the development of the NIST Firebrand Generator, also referred to as the NIST Dragon. Due the complexity of the WUI fire problem, great strides must be made to recruit the next generation of researchers to fire safety science from diverse backgrounds. This presentation closes with a discussion of ongoing workshop activities intended to achieve this, as well as some challenges for future WUI research.
