Fire/Wildland Fire

Fire and wildland fire are catastrophic events that threat our lives and properties. We must have a better way to fight against fire and wildfire. Improving fire-fighting technologies is one way, and at the same time, we must have a technology that can predict fire and wildland fire behaviors including ignition and fire spread. An accurate prediction tool will provide better knowledge for fire prevention and fighting.

However, accurate prediction of fire is not a trivial task. It requires multi-scale and multi-physics model development and extensive numerical and experimental studies to validate. We are trying to provide a better sense of phenomenon by conducting both experimental and numerical studies. One example of research activities in our lab is fire wind tunnel experiment. We developed a wind tunnel (currently hosted at WPI, MA USA) that can be deployed to forest so we can conduct experiments with real fuels in wildland. Also, we are currently developing additional wind tunnels (small- and mid-scales) at Korea University that can bridge multi-scale phenomena we have to deal with. Below is a description for the wind tunnel at WPI and example of fire spread experiments for a pine needle layer at 3 m/s wind speed.

We are currently working with researchers at Korean National Institute of Forest Science to develop prediction tools for wildfire spread and urban-wildland interfaced fire. The work will contribute to founding predictive science and engineering for disaster prediction.