BFRL Program

Advanced Fire Service Technology

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Component Projects

The intended outcome of this research program is an information rich environment for emergency response and fire prevention.  Enhanced emergency information improves first responder situational awareness and contributes to safer and more effective responses. Providing means to quantify fire risk aid local authorities in fire prevention and protection efforts. 

 

Intended Outcome and Background

Today, fire fighting operations, inside and outside of structures, proceed with very limited information about the extent of fire involvement, structure safety, hazards, and even the location of firefighters.  For safer and more effective fire fighting, incident commanders and firefighters need access to reliable and timely information regarding fire conditions, developing hazards, and the location and condition of resources.  Enhanced training tools based on state-of-the-art computer simulations and measurements of fire can enable better training of firefighters.   

The full capabilities and limitations of equipment and systems being introduced into the fire service needs to be understood with respect to the needs of fire fighters.  Draft measurement standards for the performance of fire service and other first responder equipment are being developed to aid in the evaluation of new technologies. 

As building regulations, materials of construction, and fire service response change, means to quantify the level of fire safety in communities needs to be available as an aid to local fire authorities. 

The Advanced Fire Service Technologies research program includes: 

• Research to assess the performance among the different available thermal imaging technologies.  BFRL has constructed an apparatus to measure performance in controlled exposures that duplicate environments encountered in fire fighting.  Laboratory measurements are being compared to field measurements.  A second smaller laboratory apparatus will be developed to address some of the needed exposure conditions.
• Research to provide the foundation for the exchange of information from buildings and other sources to first responder decision support systems during emergencies.  BFRL has taken a first step with the industry by developing display standards for graphic alarm systems.  Similar effort will produce standards for the information set needed by first responders to deal with a range of emergency scenarios. 
• Research to advance the heat transfer model for fire fighter protective clothing under wet and dry conditions with associated material property database will be validated by comparisons with data from industrial standard tests.  This model will be used as a corner stone of a training tool that allows firefighters to visualize the limits of performance of their protective gear in computer simulated fire environments.
• Research to benefit the fire service is best prioritized, planned and conducted with input from interested and knowledgeable fire fighters.  BFRL, in cooperation with FEMA, produces a web-based newsletter, FIRE.GOV directed at the fire service reader to provide contacts for on-going research.  The fire service benefits directly from research information that can impact their work published in this easily accessible electronic form.   
• Research in fire modeling, understanding of the dynamics of fire fighting, and measurement of equipment performance each an on-going project in BFRL, provides the basis for effective firefighting simulations.  BFRL is working with Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute and others to examine effective ways in which fire simulations based on physical modeling can be used to enhance the training for new firefighters.
• Research in community fire modeling conducted at BFRL is producing the first physics-based model of the fire spread process.  This community fire spread model can be used to assess the rate of house-to-house fire spread.  It is a tool for fire departments and communities to assess the response needs and to quantify the impact of mitigation strategies. 

 

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