Eric Link

Wildland-urban interface (WUI) fires are a threat to thousands of communities in the United States. Thousands of structures are destroyed, and thousands of lives are threatened or upended by fires every year. There are valuable lessons to be learned from these WUI fire events to help communities become more prepared, resilient, and resistant to fires in the future. Since 2007, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has conducted four post-fire case studies to do just that.

, Shonali Nazare, Karen Jackson, , Two recreational vehicle (RV) travel trailers were burned outdoors at the Austin Fire Department training campus in Austin, TX. The goal of these preliminary experiments was to observe and document the burning behavior of fully furnished RV trailers and to assess the feasibility of future instrumented burns in the National Fire Research Laboratory.

Impacts of wildland-urban interface (WUI) fires continue to rise in the US, evidenced by the string of devastating and record-breaking events occurring since 2017. As seen in several events in recent years, WUI fires can impact communities quickly, leaving little to no time for civilians to evacuate. Numerous events have also occurred internationally, including Australia, Canada, Chile, Greece, and Portugal. One example is the Camp Fire that occurred on November 8, 2018, in Butte County, CA.