Fire risk reduction

News and Updates

Groups of people sit or lie in a parking lot surrounded by low buildings as fires burn in the forest beyond.

NIST Issues New Guidance for Emergency Response During Wildfires

August 23, 2023

Lessons learned from the 2018 Camp Fire in California include strategies for protecting lives when there is not enough time to safely evacuate all residents.

AI Can Accurately Predict Potentially Fatal Cardiac Events in Firefighters

July 11, 2023

Training a machine-learning model with real-life data from firefighters was key.

Photo shows a NIST firefighter on standby watching a shed burn next to a target structure representing a wall of a residence during an experiment.

For Sheds in Wildfire Zones, NIST Researchers Determine How Close Is Too Close to Home

June 1, 2023

How far away do sheds need to be located to significantly limit fire spread to homes? New research led by NIST has begun to provide important answers.

Projects and Programs

Public Health Risks to First Responders

Ongoing

There is growing evidence that firefighters (FF) are being exposed to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) associated with their gear. The source of the

Publications

Wind-driven Fire Spread to a Structure from Firewood Piles

March 30, 2023

Author(s)

Erik L. Johnsson, Kathryn Butler, Marco G. Fernandez, Shonali Nazare, Alexander Maranghides

A series of field experiments was conducted to examine the effects on fire spread toward a structure for firewood piles under conditions that may be encountered

Examining the effectiveness of water suppression for mitigating backdrafts

March 19, 2023

Author(s)

Ryan Falkenstein-Smith, Thomas Cleary

An analysis of the backdraft phenomenon's mitigation from water suppression is con- ducted in a 2/5th scale compartment. Different volumes of water were

Real-Time Flashover Prediction Model for Multi-Compartment Building Structures Using Attention Based Recurrent Neural Networks

March 17, 2023

Author(s)

Wai Cheong Tam, Eugene Yujun Fu, Jiajia Li, Richard D. Peacock, Paul A. Reneke, Thomas Cleary, Grace Ngai, Hong Va Leong, Michael Xuelin Huang

This paper presents the development of an attention based bi-directional gated recurrent unit model, P-Flashv2, for the prediction of potential occurrence of

An Automated System for Flow Characterization at Exhaust Ducts and Smokestacks

February 10, 2023

Author(s)

Rodney Bryant, Artur A. Chernovsky, Joseph A. Falco, Iosif Isaakovich Shinder

This report summarizes the design and description for an automated system of velocity traverse probes. Performance of key components of the system are also

Tools and Instruments

Fire Calorimetry Database (FCD)

The National Fire Research Laboratory (NFRL) operates calorimeters to measure the heat and combustion products for fires in the range of 50 kW to 20,000 kW