What is it about?
Safety zones should be considered concerning people who are intervening in the emergency or attempting evacuation. To establish such zones, the solid flame model, together with the view factor calculated from a previously selected equation, was used to estimate the thermal radiation emitted by the flame front of a wildland fire. These data, together with threshold values for the vulnerability of people (protected or unprotected) and houses to thermal radiation, allowed for a set of safety distances for different situations to be obtained. These safety distances can be applied both in territory planning and in emergency situations.
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Why is it important?
The establishment of safety distances can be highly useful in such fields as regional planning (in terms of the construction of houses or roads in or near forests) or emergency planning.
Perspectives
These distances allow for the establishment of safety zones, which are very useful both in terms of prevention and emergency planning, in the determination of adequate separations between houses and wooded areas and in establishing evacuation routes, the same method can be applied for the distribution of equipment in industrial plants.
Luis Zarate
Universidad Popular Autonoma del Estado de Puebla
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Establishing safety distances for wildland fires, Fire Safety Journal, November 2008, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.firesaf.2008.01.001.
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