The Department of Fire Protection Engineering at the University of Maryland (https://fpe.umd.edu) hosted the Fire Safety Science Combustion Institute-Summer School from 4-9 June 2023. It was attended by 47 students – consisting of Ph.D. students, early-career researchers, and consultants – as well as 22 instructors and panelists from around the world.
The program focused on the behavior of wildland fires and Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) fires via an engineering-based lens. Participants were exposed to a broad range of related advanced topics with a mix of fundamental seminars (emphasizing the underlying physical and chemical mechanisms) and general courses (describing the scope of real-world problems, while emphasizing challenges in finding solutions to mitigate the negative effects of these fires) such as firebrands, soot and radiation, rate-of-spread models, regional-scale fire risk modeling, and human behavior in WUI fires. The program also gave participants ample opportunities to network and foster international collaborations. The PPT presentations and video lectures have been posted online and are available here.
The summer school was financially supported by the UMD Burgers Program for Fluid Dynamics and by The Combustion Institute. For any questions, please contact Prof. Arnaud Trouvé (atrouve@umd.edu).
Overall, the Fire Safety Science Combustion Institute-Summer School was a great success for the organizers, attendees, and the CI Summer School program as a whole. Thank you to Prof. Arnaud Trouvé for providing the written summary of the event, and to the organizers for their dedication and contributions to the combustion science community.