Static Analysis-based Rapid Fire-Following Earthquake Risk Assessment Method using Simple Building and GIS Information

Abstract

After the occurrences of large-scale earthquakes, regional secondary damage (e.g., fire-following earthquake) can result in tremendous losses of life, properties, and buildings. To reduce these disaster risks, fire-following earthquake assessment method composed of ignition and fire-burned rate estimation models were utilized. However, the previous methods required complex building/GIS information and large amount of time to consider various regional characteristics. This paper proposed static analysis-based rapid fire-following earthquake assessment method using simple information and implemented it to Pohan City, South Korea. Based on the previous studies, the best-fit model for the ignition rate estimation was selected, and the cluster-based fire-burned rate model simulated using simple building information (e.g., construction year, building occupancy, story, and total floor area) in public building database was developed. For the fire-burned rate model, the fire-resistant structural types were defined using the public database, and this was utilized to group or cluster buildings in a regional level by comparison between fire-spread distance for each structural type and adjacent distance among the buildings. This rapid method was demonstrated as follows: (1) the selected ignition rate model predicted the same ignition numbers with the actual reported number, and (2) the fire-burned rate model estimated fire-spread areas with a marginal difference compared to the dynamic fire spread simulation.