News
Researchers and practitioners from academia and industry came together for a recent InterAcademy Partnership (IAP) webinar exploring how advances in wildfire modelling and risk assessment can support preparedness for wildland-urban interface (WUI) fires.
The webinar, 'International Collaboration for Advancing Modelling and Risk Assessment of Wildland-Urban Interface Fires', followed an IAP workshop convened with the Royal Spanish Academy of Sciences and supported by the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. (Wildfire Modelling and Artificial Intelligence Report: here)
Opening the discussion, Hussam Mahmoud of Vanderbilt University reflected on the growing challenge wildfires pose for communities around the world as climate conditions change and development continues in fire prone areas. Speakers discussed how scientific tools and international cooperation can help improve understanding of wildfire behaviour and support decision making before and during fire events.
Elsa Pastor from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya focused on wildfire vulnerability at the community level and shared work on how homes ignite during fires. She presented a fuzzy logic modelling approach that combines expert knowledge, post-fire analysis and computational fluid dynamics simulations to better understand vulnerabilities in the built environment. Her presentation showed how these methods can help communities assess risk and strengthen preparedness measures at the parcel and neighbourhood scale.
Jason Sharples from the University of New South Wales examined the dynamics behind extreme wildfire behaviour, including ember attacks and rapidly changing fire conditions. He spoke about the difficulty of collecting detailed observational data during active fires and the need to better understand wildfire behaviour across different scales.
Savvas Gkantonas, co-founder and CEO of PinePig, presented modelling tools designed to support both wildfire risk management and disaster response. Building on research originally developed at the University of Cambridge, he demonstrated how simulation models can help identify patterns of fire spread and estimate risks to communities and infrastructure. Examples from fires in Colorado, Portugal and California illustrated how these tools can support operational decision making under rapidly changing conditions.
A recurring theme throughout the webinar was the importance of better access to operational and post-fire data. Speakers highlighted the need for stronger collaboration between researchers, emergency responders and industry to improve understanding of how fires spread and how interventions influence outcomes.
The discussion also reinforced the value of international cooperation. Participants pointed to shared data, joint research efforts and stronger links between science and practice as important steps toward improving wildfire preparedness worldwide.
The webinar recording is available on the IAP YouTube channel.