Impact of Urban Fires in Drainage Systems: an Experimental Case Study

The number of existing studies on the effect of urban fires on drainage systems and treatment facilities is relatively scarce. However, as shown in this paper, the water runoff generated during an urban firefighting can impact these systems. The maximum flow capacity of sewers or other components of the drainage systems can be exceeded. Contaminated water resulting from the fire combat can also impact on subsequent treatment operations taking place at domestic sewage treatment facilities or wastewater treatment plants. Further environmental concerns may be raised if these runoffs are discharged without any treatment. In this paper, a case study is presented to assess the possible effects of urban firefighting on drainage systems and treatment facilities. For this, a simulation of a fire in a traditional Portuguese dwelling was carried out, collecting and analysing the water effluent resulting from the firefighting. Potential physicochemical and hydraulic impacts were discussed taking into account European and Portuguese context. With this work, the authors aimed to provide authorities with information that allows planning or implementation corrective interventions that may be necessary to mitigate potential impacts in the case of urban fires.

Pożary w miastach Rzeczypospolitej w XVI-XVIII wieku i ich następstwa ekonomiczne, społeczne i kulturowe

The monograph discusses the causes for early modern urban fires (wars, arson, lightning discharges, human carelessness), their number, extent, duration and frequency. It also refers to the biggest fire disasters in a dozen or so big and middle towns, their demographic, economic, social, political and architectural consequences as well as to fire safety regulations and attempts to prevent and extinguish fires.

Firefighting in Vulnerable Areas Based on the Connection between Fire Hydrants and Fire Brigade

A sufficient supply of water for firefighting is critical for effective responses to urban fires, thus reducing fire hazards. The aim of this study was the development of an analysis method for vulnerable areas with respect to firefighting activities that require the use of fire hydrants. In particular, a method was proposed for the determination of the operational range of firefighting activities based on the distribution of the fire hydrants and the roads that allow for the passage of firefighting vehicles. The proposed method, which employs a geographic information system (GIS), was applied to Buk-gu, Daegu City, South Korea. The research results revealed that the operational range of firefighting activities and vulnerable areas can be determined by studying the connection between the fire hydrant locations and the fire brigade in the analysis of the accessible areas. This study contributes to the development of GIS analysis methods for comprehensive vulnerability analyses of firefighting activities, including accessibility to fire hydrants.

Detection of pre-industrial societies on exoplanets

Approximately 22% of sun-like stars have Earth-like exoplanets. Advanced civilizations may exist on these, and significant effort has been expended on the theoretical analysis of planetary systems, and accompanying practical detection instruments. The longevity of technological civilizations is unknown, as is the probability of less advanced societies becoming technological. Accordingly, searching for pre-industrial extra-terrestrial societies may be more productive. Using the earth as a model, a consideration of possible detectible proxies suggests that observation of seasonal agriculture may be possible in the near future – particularly in ideal circumstances, for which quantitative analysis is provided. More speculatively, other detectible processes may include: species introduction; climate change; large urban fires and land-use or aquatic changes. Primitive societies may be both aware that their activities may be observed from other planets, and may deliberately adjust these activities to aid or conceal detection.

Fostering human–robot cooperative architectures for search and rescue missions in urban fires

Urban fires are probably the most frequent catastrophic incidents in urban areas, requiring a prompt response due to life endangerment in highly populated zones and the high risk of fire propagation to buildings and parked cars in the vicinity. Robot assistance has been identified as a valuable resource for such urban search and rescue (USAR) scenarios by taking advantage of robots’ expendability. However, it is still unclear or not quantified how advantageous such human–robot cooperation can be to the final outcome of firefighting operations and other USAR missions. This article reports research in this context by modeling key features of a firefighting mission in response to an urban fire in a large basement garage. Besides building a behavioral model of human firefighting teams based on interviews with a Portuguese Fire Department, and assessing their performance under different circumstances, this work studies the addition of robotic teams in cooperation with human firefighters to overcome communication issues and improve situation awareness. The results obtained highlight the importance of such human–robot partnership for a more effective response to an urban fire and mitigation of life endangerment of first responders and victims.

SCIUloT: Sistema de Combate aos lncendios Urbanos por meio daloT

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a communication paradigm that aims to cover the current Internet. In this sense, IoT covers a large space in the daily life of human beings, whether in the academic field or in the industrial sphere, therefore, there are smarter cities, health and automation of environments. Through the IoT it is possible to connect the objects of the everyday world to the Internet, in order to make these objects communicate with each other and with users. This work presents the way in which the IoT can corroborate in the fight against Urban Fires, through a system that interacts sensors, microcontrollers, the user and the Fire Department. The use of sensors that collect information about a certain location, send it to a controller board, which in turn forwards that information to the server, which directs the information to the user and the Fire Department, is the mechanism that will allow firefighters to be alerted to the incident. In this way, the work of the competent bodies can be made more effusive and, therefore, prevent the spread of fire in order to fight fires. It is worth mentioning that the rapid action of firefighters is extremely important, as the fire spreads quickly and produces incalculable damage.

A Hybrid Approach Integrating Entropy-AHP and GIS for Suitability Assessment of Urban Emergency Facilities

Globalization has become a major issue of focus as rapid urban populations and urbanization effects are on the rise. A critical need arises for effective urban planning for Istanbul in relation to the use of a hybrid approach integrating AHP-Entropy and GIS for emergency facility planning. In this paper, the combination of AHP and Entropy methods was used for evaluating criterion weights subjectively and objectively. These techniques were utilized with regard to the assessment of suitable areas for planning new urban emergency facilities for Istanbul province which experiences increasing urban fire-related emergencies. AHP and Entropy have been used to evaluate the weights of determined criteria from expert preference judgments and GIS for processing, analysis and visualization of the model result in the form of a suitability map for new urban emergency facilities. Validation of the model was performed on the criteria with the strongest influence in the decision outcome and spatially visualized using the sensitivity analysis (SA) method of one-at-a-time (OAT). From the findings, it was estimated that 28.1% of the project area, accounting for a third of it, is likely to be exposed to the risk of urban fires and therefore immediate planning of new urban emergency facilities is recommended for adequate fire service coverage and protection.

4. Containing and suppressing fire

‘Containing and suppressing fire’ compares urban and pastoral understandings of fire. Prevention and suppression measures for one country may not be relevant in another, and even in the case of wildfires, one region may contain many different biomes, so formulating fire suppression policies can be complex. Some low-intensity surface fires may help prevent more dangerous crown fires; an urban understanding of all landscape fires as negative is not always helpful. With the increased popularity of living among flammable vegetation, the speed of wildfires can take some people by surprise. In urban fires, smoke has long been recognized as dangerous, but smoke from wildfires and peat burning can also cause health problems.