Wildfires may seem unpredictable, leaving random ruin in their wake.
CSU engineers have developed a model that can predict how wildfire will impact a community down to which buildings will burn. They say predicting damage to the built environment is essential to developing fire mitigation strategies and steps for recovery.
For years, Hussam Mahmoud, a Civil and Environmental Engineering professor, and postdoctoral fellow Akshat Chulahwat have been working on a model to measure the vulnerability of communities to wildfire. Most wildfire mitigation studies have focused on modeling fire behavior in the wildland; Mahmoud and Chulahwat’s model was the first to predict how a fire would progress through a community.
Read more at: Colorado State University
What remains of a mobile home park is pictured following the 2018 Camp Fire. CSU engineers have developed a model that was able to predict which buildings burned and which survived the Camp Fire with as high as 86% accuracy. (Photo Credit: Hussam Mahmoud)