Wildfires

For its coverage of the Los Angeles area wildfires, The New York Times interviewed Albert Simeoni, professor and head of the Department of Fire Protection Engineering, about how the wildland fires in Southern California transformed into urban fires, leading to extensive loss of life and destruction of property. The department of fire protection engineering conducts extensive research on wildfires aimed at improving the prevention of and response to fires in the future.

The devastating wildfires in the Los Angeles area exemplify the dangers of wind-driven fires in inhabited areas. WPI’s Department of Fire Protection Engineering is leading research designed to understand how fires spread with the goal of contributing to measures that can better protect communities and firefighters. WPI’s research, which involves faculty and ongoing experiments conducted by students in a state-of-the-art wind tunnel on campus, was featured by several media outlets. NBC Boston's report was re-aired on more than a dozen television news stations in cities around the U.S. including Washington, DC, Minneapolis, Dallas, Albuquerque, Spokane, Yakima, WA, Fresno, CA, Albany, NY, Topeka, KS, Greenville, SC, Abilene, TX, and Elmira, NY.

The Los Angeles fires have raised questions about how fires behave. For one: how do some wildfires generate fire whirls, or fire tornadoes? The Department of Fire Protection Engineering conducts research on wildfires that seeks to protect people and property from future fires. James Urban, assistant professor of fire protection engineering, speaks in this Associated Press video about fire whirls, and a recent demonstration of the phenomenon that was conducted in a WPI fire protection engineering laboratory.

Large wildfires like the devastating fires in the Los Angeles area can sometimes develop fire whirls, or fire tornadoes. To help create more understanding about that phenomenon, Assistant Professor James Urban spoke with the Associated Press and helped conduct demonstrations in a WPI Fire Protection Engineering laboratory for an article that explains fire whirls. Urban, other faculty, and students in the Fire Protection Engineering program conduct research on a variety of aspects of wildfires with a goal of improving fire prevention and response.