I-Corps: Context-specific scientific simulation models to mitigate wildfire risks

这个i-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是为荒地-城市交界处(WUI)地区开发动态的、面向社区的野火准备解决方案，该地区占美国家庭的三分之一。目前的野火疏散计划严重依赖静态分区，往往缺乏区域或系统层面的视角。这些计划在理解和应对实际挑战方面做得不够，例如野火蔓延的不可预测性、居民普遍缺乏认识/合作以及在紧急情况下沟通和调动资源的困难。通过在规划过程中融入动态元素和社区努力，拟议的解决方案(软件和服务)旨在支持各级政府机构(例如消防部门、规划部门和紧急服务办公室)潜在地保护WUI居民的安全和财产，并可能创造积极的社区形象。保险提供商或大型度假村等私营部门公司也可能受益于拟议的解决方案，为客户开发更好的服务/产品，并增加公司回报。一旦在野火部门得到验证，拟议的解决方案可能被用来减轻其他自然灾害的损失，如飓风和地震。这个i-Corps项目基于两个核心创新的开发：一套科学模拟模型，捕捉野火疏散的整体过程，以及一个先进的可视化平台，通过动手体验刺激提高认识和自下而上的合作。在建模方面，集成的仿真框架通过包含野火进程、组织通信流和交通疏散子模块来捕捉野火疏散过程中的动态。这些模型被开发为高效和高度可扩展的，有助于识别超出小司法管辖区或单一基础设施类型边界限制的疏散瓶颈。在可视化方面，模拟模块的结果被转换为3D动画，包括火灾、交通拥堵和通信中断。模拟可视化程序可以生成无穷无尽的场景并呈现给用户，有效地促进了居民情景意识的增强，并确保了当地社区成员和野火管理专家之间更顺畅的双向沟通。这些模型和可视化已经在不同的案例研究地点建立了原型，显示了通过科学和社会创新可能改善准备工作的潜力。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the potential development of dynamic and community-oriented wildfire preparedness solutions for the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) areas, which constitute a third of US households. Current wildfire evacuation plans rely heavily on static zoning and often lack a regional or system-level perspective. These plans fall short when it comes to understanding and addressing practical challenges, such as the unpredictability of the wildfire progression, the general lack of awareness/collaboration by the residents, and the difficulty in communication and resource mobilization in emergency situations. By incorporating the dynamic elements as well as community efforts in the planning process, the proposed solution (software and service) aims at supporting government agencies at various jurisdiction levels (e.g., fire department, planning department, and offices of emergency services) in potentially safeguarding the WUI residents’ safety and properties, as well as possibly creating positive community images. Private sector companies such as insurance providers or large resorts also may benefit from the proposed solution to develop better services/products for their customers and increase company returns. Once validated in the wildfire sector, the proposed solution may be used to mitigate the losses of other natural disasters, such as hurricanes and earthquakes. This I-Corps project is based on the development of two core innovations: a suite of scientific simulation models that capture the holistic process of wildfire evacuations, as well as an advanced visualization platform that stimulates awareness-raising and bottom-up collaborations through hands-on experiences. On the modeling side, the integrated simulation framework captures the dynamics in wildfire evacuation through the inclusion of the wildfire progression, the organizational communication flow, and traffic evacuation sub-modules. The models are developed to be efficient and highly scalable, which helps to identify the evacuation bottlenecks beyond the boundary limits of a small jurisdiction or a single infrastructure type. On the visualization side, the results from the simulation module are converted to 3D animations, including the fire flames, traffic congestion, and communication disruptions. The simulation-visualization procedure enables endless scenarios to be generated and presented to the users, effectively facilitating the enhancements of the residents’ situational awareness and ensuring smoother two-way communications between the local community members and the wildfire management experts. The models and visualizations have been prototyped at various case study locations, showing the potential of possible improved preparedness through scientific and social innovations.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.