Assessing the Fire Hazard of Structures in the Wildland-Urban Interface

摘要

The hazard to structures in the wildland-urban interface or intermix (WUI) hasbeen increasing as people move from the cities into rural areas. This movement has increased the likelihood of wildland fires occasionally threatening these structures. Forest fire fighters must defend these structures from wildfires. This increases firefighting costs; it may result in a much larger wildfire with loss of natural resources and in an even greater loss of structures. To reduce the risk to structures in the WUI, quantitative systems are needed to evaluate the fire hazard of structures in these settings. Such systems would provide a quantitative method to rank the fire hazard of various structures within their WUI. The paper describes the evaluation of a multiattribute utility assessment system that was proposed to evaluate the fire hazard rating of either proposed building sites or structures within the WUI. The evaluation highlights problems in the initial multiattribute utility system. A revised system involving elements of the initial system but with an analytical approach appears to be more promising and is also discussed.