RAPID/Collaborative Research: Investigation of 2021 Marshall Fire Impacts on Physical Infrastructure and Decision-Making Processes

2021年12月30日的马歇尔大火极大地影响了路易斯维尔、苏必利尔州和未合并的博尔德县快速发展的社区。博尔德县于2011年采取了自愿缓解野火的措施，并投入了大量资金，向公众宣传野火的风险。火灾影响的地区既有老房子（例如，苏必利尔市原镇），也有现代房子（在过去10-20年内建成）。如何在平衡当前需求与未来气候和基础设施需求的同时，设计、建造和维护更具弹性的社区，这方面的知识存在重大缺口。这个快速反应研究（Rapid）合作项目由结构、岩土、建筑和生命线工程师领导，他们中的许多人在社会科学和政策方面接受过交叉培训，以调查物理基础设施（建筑物、地基和挡土结构）的破坏模式，以及这种破坏对规划和重建决策过程的影响。更直接的是，这项研究的结果将为荒地城市界面（WUI）社区的建筑法规政策提供信息。本研究将量化建筑特征（建造年份、建筑和立面材料、地基类型和特征、与其他房屋的接近程度、围栏或甲板的存在/状况、与植被的接近程度）对草地景观中房屋生存能力和再占用率的影响。利用房屋及其各种结构部件的损坏模式和机械行为，以及对社区内传热和火灾蔓延的理解，pi将开发一种量化暴露温度和持续时间的方法。这些数据将用于制作路易斯维尔市的热图，作为描绘整个城镇火灾强度的一种方法。这些地图可以被未来的研究团队用于基准火灾模拟和经验设计或验证的预测模型。研究还将描述灾后早期重建阶段的司法重建决策过程和权衡。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Marshall Fire on December 30, 2021 greatly impacted the rapidly developing communities of Louisville, Superior, and unincorporated Boulder County. Boulder County adopted voluntary wildfire mitigation in 2011 and spent considerable funds on educating the public about the risks of wildfires. The fire impacted regions with a mixture of older homes (e.g., Original town Superior) and modern homes (built within the last 10-20 years). There is a critical gap in knowledge on how to design, build, and maintain more resilient communities, while balancing the demands of the present with the climate and infrastructure demands of the future. This Grant for Rapid Response Research (RAPID) collaborative project is led by structural, geotechnical, construction, and lifeline engineers, many of whom are cross-trained in social science and policy, to investigate damage patterns to physical infrastructure (buildings, foundations, and retaining structures), and the influence of that damage on decision-making processes for planning and reconstruction. More immediately, the results of this research will inform policies on building regulations in wildland urban interface (WUI) communities.This research will quantify the impact of building characteristics (year built, building and façade materials, foundation type and characteristics, proximity of other homes, presence/condition of fences or decks, proximity to vegetation) on housing survivability and re-occupancy in wildfires within grassland landscapes. Using the damage patterns and mechanistic behavior of the homes and their various structural components along with understanding of heat transfer and fire spread within a community, the PIs will develop a methodology to quantify exposure temperatures and duration. This data will be used to develop heat maps of the City of Louisville as a method to portray fire intensity throughout the town. These maps can be used by future research teams for benchmarking fire simulations and empirically-designed or validated predictive models. The research will also characterize the jurisdictional reconstruction decision-making processes and tradeoffs in the early post-disaster reconstruction phase.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.