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Relevance and
Originality |
The
main focus of this project is to protect new dwellings from wildfires, using
the concept of a fireproof envelope facade, with existent commercial
non-combustible materials. The
risk of wildland fires in Portugal has increased in last 10 years due to
climate change and the unguarded plantation of the forest (eucalyptus and
pine). In
2017, two of the largest wildland fires recorded in the history of Portugal
(Pedrógão Grande and 15 de Outubro), had a major impact not only on the
forest areas (burning 45.000ha+241.000ha respectively), but also on the
communities, with a death toll of 114. Following these fires, new legislation
was created, only concerning measures related to the wildland-urban interface
(forest cleaning, vegetation height, distance from vegetation to dwellings,
etc…). But interestingly, no extra measure or care was taken, regarding the
characteristics of the dwellings or the protection of the people caught by
the fires. However, the analysis of expert opinions and questioners, clearly
showed that the dwellings that had burned, had constructive typologies
without any passive anti-fire protection. The disregard of this aspect, led
to the burned houses being rebuilt in the same way as the original, which
means that they are likely to burn again in the next wildfire. This
important blank in protection measures of new dwellings against wildfire, led
to the development of this project that aims to fill this gap in knowledge.
To solve this problem, fireproof construction guidelines with incombustible
materials are assembled and tested, for windows, doors, roofs and exterior
walls. |
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Contribution to
Scientific and Technological Knowledge |
The
undergoing project, will be a very important innovation regarding passive
protection of dwellings from wildland fire in Portugal, allowing the release
of the firefighter to fight the fire directly in the forest field. Althought
several interior fireproof solutions exist for internal fires, no code or
standards exist for external action of a wildfire against a dwelling. Several
papers will be published in international journals with impact factor, and
several reports will be presented to the Portuguese Civil Protection and
related theme conferences. |
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Production of
Knowledge that can Contribute to Benefits and Business Sector |
This
project will promote the increase of safety in dwellings, population and human
resources used in WLF. Beyond that, it will allow to reduce the cost of
repairing or rebuilding dwellings after WLF. It
is then possible to: 1)
The reduction of human drama due to the scourge of fires. Besides saving
lives, as added value this solution prevents a home building from being
consumed, giving the individual the possibility of not losing what it took
years to build. In this case the affection for the house, memories and
everything that is inside. 2)
A cost reduction during the post-fire, since it wouldn’t be necessary any
rehabilitation or reconstruction of dwellings. When compared with the fire in
Pedrogão Grande in 2017, 54 residential houses were reconstruct and 102 were
rehabilitated, with a total cost of 9.9 million euros. It is estimated, that
the average cost of construction with fireproof construction guideline is
around 250€/m2, and the cost of rebuilding a dwelling is above 1000€/m2. 3)
Firefighters have more flexibility in residential areas, allowing the
firefighters to effectively contain and control/extinguish the fire more
effectively in the forest field. |
