Wildfire risk models still leave decision-makers with gaps in assessing community consequences and infrastructure disruption even as capabilities in modeling fire spread and hazard characterization remain comparatively mature, a UL Research Institutes report found.
UL Research Institutes’ Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI) released the report Thursday, Oct. 22, after an exercise involving an estimated 28 models combined into 20 integrated risk solutions representing about 21 organizations.
Participants applied the solutions to two semi-synthetic test settings, each measuring 5 km by 5 km: one representing a forested area and the other a prairie landscape. The exercise examined what the systems could do without scoring or ranking them. The report did not assess model performance because researchers lacked an established ground truth for evaluating results; that leaves the findings without a basis for identifying the most accurate model.
The report found relatively mature capabilities in modeling fire spread and characterizing hazards. It also identified gaps in assessing consequences for communities, economic losses and infrastructure disruption. Technical results can be difficult to translate into choices for emergency managers and fire-service practitioners, the report said.
FSRI identifies inconsistent risk definitions and data, alongside difficulty turning model outputs into operational decisions, as barriers to a more complete assessment.
The institute recommends linking models designed for different parts of wildfire risk assessment, including tools that model fire spread across landscapes and assess community impacts. Shared data and interoperability standards would help the systems exchange information. FSRI also calls for decision-support tools for mitigation, preparedness and response, plus ensemble modeling that combines outputs from multiple models. The recommendations favor coordination across the risk pathway over reliance on a single all-purpose model.
FSRI says the report is intended for fire and public-safety agencies, emergency managers, infrastructure operators, insurers, financial institutions and model developers. Rebecca Harned, a principal research scientist at FSRI, said the findings “identified the investments needed to advance wildfire risk intelligence.”
