Center: IUCRC Site Addition WPI: Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center (WIRC)

在美国，过去22年野火调整后的影响超过1000亿美元。一个适应野火的社区可以为预期的情况做好准备，采取缓解措施，适应不断变化的条件，在响应事件期间最大限度地减少损失，并迅速恢复。圣何塞州立大学野火跨学科中心（WIRC）和产学研合作研究中心（IUCRC）的科学家们正在与伍斯特理工学院（WPI）的研究人员合作，全面调查野火。更广泛的影响包括改善对野火的反应，特别是在决策领域；确定风险;确保可靠的电网运行，并告知电网切断的决策；尽量减少生命和财产损失；并为生活在易受野火影响地区的人们提供更有效的警告和预测。该中心正在培训STEM劳动力，使其成为消防管理人员、城市规划者、火灾分析师和火灾气象学家。这项合作将增加接受野火研究培训的学生人数，使学生接受的培训类型多样化，并增加学生在更多公司实习的潜力。两所大学都将利用各自的校园项目积极开展外展活动，以增加受过培训的学生的多样性。最后，该合作伙伴关系将WIRC的范围扩展到东海岸，那里的火灾频率和极端火灾也在增加。总体而言，该中心正在开展高影响野火研究，为社区和行业利益相关者提供新的预测工具和策略，包括急救人员、风险分析师、政策制定者、公司和公用事业公司。通过与WPI（世界自然保护委员会WIRC的新合作站点）合作，集体团队将与该中心正在进行的野火预测、准备和预防工作协同解决几个关键问题。例如，WPI增加了关键的研究深度，以解决人类安全和社区对野火的抵御能力，包括荒地-城市界面的消防安全；小尺度火灾行为；火场前缘水平的火灾冲击；消防系统，消防员安全。提高对火灾通过不同植被层传播的理解，对火灾燃烧植被或结构产生的火种的表征，生成用于训练人工智能模型的可靠火灾行为数据，以及研究驱动极端火灾行为的基本火场水平过程，对于提高我们理解和模拟野火的能力至关重要。由于其对火灾保护的重视，WPI将研究新的火灾探测方法，机器人解决方案，以提高第一响应者的安全性，以及野火的灭火系统。其最先进的消防实验室提供进行实验的设备，使研究人员能够提取火灾和火灾的基本测量。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。

In the United States, the adjusted impacts of wildfires exceeded $100 B over the past 22 years. A community resilient to wildland fires can prepare for anticipated scenarios, take mitigating actions, adapt to changing conditions, minimize losses during the response to an event, and rapidly recover. Scientists with San José State University Wildfire Interdisciplinary Center (WIRC), an Industry University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC), are working together with Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) researchers to holistically investigate wildfires. Broader impacts include improved response to wildfires, especially in the areas of decision making; determining risk; ensuring reliable electrical grid operations and informing decisions on grid cutoff; minimizing loss of life and property; and providing more effective warnings and prognostication to populations living in areas susceptible to wildfire. The Center is training the STEM workforce to become fire managers, city planners, fire analysts, and fire meteorologists. The collaboration will increase the numbers of students trained in wildfire research, diversify the types of training students receive, and increase student’s potential for internships from a broader group of companies. Both institutions will conduct active outreach using their campus programs to increase the diversity of trained students. Finally, the partnership extends the reach of WIRC to the east coast where fire frequency and extreme fires are also increasing. Collectively, the Center is conducting high-impact wildfire research to provide new predictive tools and strategies to communities and industry stakeholders, including first responders, risk analysts, policymakers, companies, and utilities. By partnering with WPI, a new IUCRC Partner Site to WIRC, the collective team will address several key topics synergistic with the Center’s ongoing wildfire prediction, preparation, and prevention efforts. For example, WPI adds critical research depth to address human safety and community resilience to wildfire, including fire safety at the wildland-urban interface; small-scale fire behavior; fire impact at the fire-front level; fire protection systems, and firefighter safety. Improvements in understanding of fire spread through different layers of vegetation, the characterization of firebrands produced by a fire-burning vegetation or structure, the generation of reliable fire behavior data used to train AI models, and the study of the fundamental fire-front level processes to drive extreme fire behavior are critically needed to improve our ability to understand and model wildfire. Because of its emphasis on fire protection, WPI will study new fire detection methods, robotics solutions to enhance first responders’ safety, and fire suppression systems for wildfires. Its state-of-the-art Fire Protection Lab provides equipment to conduct experiments, enabling researchers to extract fundamental measurements of fire ignition and conflagration.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.