Report on Existing Fireproof Construction Guidelines for Dwellings against Wildfires

Abstract

This work presents a state-of-the-art review of existing fireproof construction guidelines for dwellings against wildfires. The most important wildfire-proof construction guidelines and codes for dwellings are presented, and these are later associated with existing fire engineering chapters associated with building codes. It was concluded that the variability in this subject is very high, and the approach to classifying the thermal effects in construction still lags behind scientific consensus. Moreover, the constructive requirements depend severally on the country’s building code when assessing the fireproof requirements for wildfire. Moreover, the thermal actions of wildfires in dwellings are presented and compared with classical ISO-834 standard fire curves, in which the maximum equivalent fire exposure time can range from 2 to 4 h depending on the country’s code. The key contributions of this work consist of (i) thoroughly disseminating codes and guidelines to promote scientific discussion in order to advance the wildfire fireproof standards dedicated to WUI; (ii) emphasizing the void in current codes in order to promote conversation between future researchers.

Ignition Locations and Simplified Design Guidelines for Enhancing the Resilience of Dwellings against Wildland Fires

“…It was beyond the scope of the present study to list all of the existing standards that have proposed construction and design guidelines to enhance the resistance of dwellings against wildfires. Further detail on this information can be found in [40]. The two most important standards regarding the construction guidelines, design proposals, and laboratory testing of construction elements are the Australian standard [14] and the California Building Code [15].…”