At least four major wildfires have torn across Los Angeles County this week with estimates of nearly 40,000 acres of land burned and thousands of structures and homes destroyed.
Sadly, these events have become such a frequent threat in the American West that wildfire resilience is now a major point of emphasis across the civil engineering profession.
Here are some recent articles from ASCE’s Civil Engineering Source and Civil Engineering magazine looking at various aspects of the topic:
New computationally efficient model will ‘tame’ fire
Researchers have developed a fire propagation model that can determine whether a building will survive a wildfire. It will have profound implications for civil engineers, policymakers, and communities.
Yes, fire tornadoes are real, and engineers must deal with them
A fiery vortex spinning across the land and threatening infrastructure with the one-two punch of high winds and flames is not just the stuff of nightmares or movies.
Artificial intelligence detects fires early, protecting people and infrastructure
Climate scientists and fire agencies looking to get ahead of evolving fire behavior have begun to leverage artificial intelligence in wildfire detection.
How engineers combat conditions within the ‘red zone’ of global warming
A warming world is producing more intense wildfires and more extreme heat waves. Here’s what engineering experts are doing to protect and preserve our threatened infrastructure.
ASCE Library wildfire collection
In response to the wildfires in California, ASCE has opened the following journal and proceedings papers to help engineers understand the impact of fire on infrastructure and better mitigate future damage.
