The inaugural meeting of the Wildland Urban Interface Advisory Committee (WAC) for UL’s Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI) took place earlier this year at the FSRI offices in Columbia, MD. The WAC was established last spring to provide FSRI with direction in the specialized wildland urban interface (WUI) research field. The meeting brought 12 esteemed professionals who serve on the committee together with FSRI research engineers to discuss various WUI topics.

The two-day meeting, led by FSRI research program manager Derek Alkonis, opened with an overview of FSRI history, research initiatives, and goals for the advisory committee. The objective of this first meeting was for FSRI to learn from committee members where gaps exist in WUI knowledge and how FSRI can contribute to help fill these gaps. To accomplish this, each member introduced their respective organization’s research, activities, and collaborative opportunities. The FSRI research team then provided overviews of current FSRI WUI projects and touched on possible ways research findings can help impact the needs of other organizations.

“It’s crucial for FSRI to understand where gaps exist in WUI knowledge throughout the world. A big part of this understanding is built through our connections with each advisory committee member and learning how our resources may help make significant advances in WUI fire resilience.”
—Derek Alkonis, research program manager, FSRI

After two days of thoughtful discussion involving various WUI topics, a few specific areas emerged as the focus points for the WAC members. These included using evidence-based research to:

• Link fuel mitigation efforts to the degree of risk in the built environment
• Improve codes, standards, and community safety preparedness
• Improve WUI fire models and fire data collection
• Establish effective communication of the WUI fire threat within communities
• Increase responder effectiveness and safety

FSRI is now in the process of developing a long-term WUI research plan to outline unresolved WUI research areas the organization is best positioned to address. This plan will include the identification of potential collaborators and stakeholders as well as efforts to optimize the impact of research findings. The WAC will review a draft of this plan during a virtual meeting this fall.