Declining forest health attributed to associations between extensive bark beetle-caused tree mortality, accumulations of hazardous fuels, wildfire, and climate change have catalyzed changes in forest health and wildfire protection policies of land management agencies. These changes subsequently prompted research to investigate the extent to which bark beetle-altered fuel complexes affect fire b...

The abandonment of land, the high energy load generated and accumulated by vegetation covers, climate change and interface scenarios in Mediterranean forest ecosystems are demanding serious attention to forest fire conditions. This is particularly true when dealing with the budget requirements for undertaking protection programs related to the state of current and future forest landscapes. Base...

In this paper, we examine unintentional dwelling fire injuries during the period 2006 to 2016 in Merseyside, North West of England. Overall, it appeared that deprivation was a significant factor over studied, with 52% occurring areas highest level deprivation. Males and females equally likely be injured an fire, however, males were twice as alcohol drug-related incident, or attempting fight tha...

OBJECTIVE The objectives of this study were to develop a novel training model for using mass-casualty incident (MCI) scenarios that trained hospital and prehospital staff together using Microsoft Visio, images from Google Earth and icons representing first responders, equipment resources, local hospital emergency department bed capacity, and trauma victims. The authors also tested participants'...

Air conditioning control systems are commonly installed in restaurants, commercial buildings, office buildings and institutional buildings in Hong Kong. The systems invariably involve the use of fans for moving the air, filters for cleansing, ducts for air distribution, a control system for regulating the amount of heating or cooling automatically and a refrigerating plant connected to the heat...

CONTEXT Although there are ample data on the respiratory effects of exposure to fire extinguisher gas, the potential hematologic effects have not been fully documented. We conducted this study to determine the possible etiologic agent(s) for a decrease in red blood cells among community residents in Taipei, Taiwan, after they were exposed to leakage of mixed fire extinguishants containing bromo...

The purpose of the present study was to elucidate differences in actual work environments, mobility and satisfaction between firefighters wearing aluminized and non-aluminized personal protective equipment (PPE), and to suggest a proper standard test method for Japanese firefighters' PPE. A survey from two cities in Japan (City A: aluminized PPE; City B: non aluminized PPE) was undertaken. A to...

Imported fire ant colonies were quantified in 1,000-m(2) circular subplots spaced approximately 125 m apart on a sheep and goat farm in Oklahoma. Social form (percent polygyny), mound density, cumulative above-ground mound volume, and average mound volume were subjected to multiple regression analyses to examine trends related to landscape metrics and habitat characteristics. Monogyne populatio...

This paper explores the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in wildfire monitoring. To begin establishing effective methods for autonomous monitoring, a simulation (FLAME) is developed for algorithm testing. To simulate a wildfire, the well established FARSITE fire simulator is used to generate realistic fire behavior models. FARSITE is a wildfire simulator that is used in the field by Incid...