Synonyms
Definition
Wetting agents as used in this contribution are either water or materials consisting mainly of water. They are used to pre-wet fuels exposed to wildland urban interface fires to prevent ignition and fire spread on these fuels.
Introduction
Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) fires have become a serious problem affecting most notably California, Colorado, Arizona, Texas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and numerous other states in the United States. These fires occur all over the world. Some of them result in catastrophes destroying a large number of buildings. Three recent examples in the United States include the “Tunnel/Oakland” fire in Oakland, California, in 1991 that destroyed over 2900 homes; the “Old, Cedar, etc.” fire in Southern California in 2003 that destroyed over 3640 homes; the “Witch, Slide, Grass Valley, etc.” fires in Southern California in 2007 that destroyed over 2180 homes (Cohen 2008), and the Chimney Tops 2 fire...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
American Society for Testing and Materials (2007a) ASTM E 1623-07: test method for determination of fire and thermal parameters of materials, products and systems using an intermediate scale calorimeter (ICAL)
American Society for Testing and Materials (2007b) ASTM E108-07: standard test methods for fire tests of roof coverings
Boundless (2016) “Evaporation.” Boundless physics boundless. 26 May 2016. Retrieved 5 Aug 2017 from https://www.boundless.com/physics/textbooks/boundless-physics-textbook/heat-and-heat-transfer-13/phase-equilbrium-115/evaporation-402-6300/
California Building Code (2007) January 1 (2009) supplement chapter 7a [Sfm] materials and construction methods for exterior wildfire exposure
Cary GJ, Bradstoch R (2003) Sensitivity of fire regimes to management. In: Cary G., Lindenmayer, D. and Dovers. S. (eds) Australia Burning: Fire Ecology, Policy and Management issues. CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, 65–81
Caton ES, Hakes RSP, Gorham DJ, Zhou A, Golliner MJ (2016) A review of pathways for building fire spread in the wildland urban interface part I: exposure conditions. Fire Technol 53:429–437
Cohen J (2004) Relating flame radiation to home ignition using modeling and experimental crown fires. Can J Forest Res 34:1616–1626
Cohen J (2008) The wildland-urban interface fire problem. Forest Hist Today Fall 2008:20–26
Glenn GM, Bingol G, Chiou B-S, Klamczynski AP, Pan Z (2012) Sodium bentonitebased coatings containing starch for protecting structures in wildfire emergency situations. Fire Saf J 51:85–92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.firesaf.2012.03.005
Hakes RSP, Caton SE, Gollner MJ (2017) A review of pathways for building fire spread in the wildland urban interface part II: response of components and systems and mitigation strategies in the United States. Fire Technol 53:475–515
International Association of Fire Chiefs (2006) In: Buckman JM (ed) Chief fire officer’s desk reference. International Association of Fire Chiefs and Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Sudbury
Manzello S.L., Blanchi R., Gollner M., McAllister S, Planas E, Rein G., Reszka P., Suzuki S. (2017), Summary of workshop large outdoor fires and the built environment, NIST Spec Publ 1213:30
Ronald GR, (2008) The Effects of Winds from burning structures on Ground-Fire propagation at the Wildland-Urban interface, Combustion Theory and Modeling. Vol. 12, No 3, June 2008, 477–496
Ross W, Brackmort B (2012) Wildfire protection in the wildland-urban interface CRS report for congress congressional research service, RS21880
Smalley J (2007) Rural and suburban life and property protection. NFPA J 101(6):36–44
Urbas J (2013) Effectiveness of pre-applied wetting agents in prevention of wildland urban interface fires. Fire Mater 37(8):563–580. https://doi.org/10.1002/fam
Urbas J, Desai P, Kimble J, Zhou A, Myers R (2011) Effectiveness of pre-applied wetting agents in prevention of wildland urban interface fires-full scale tests. Paper presented at the 12th international Fire and Materials Conference, San Francisco, USA, 31st Jan –2nd Feb 2011
Winter GJ, Vogt C, Fried JS (2002) Fuel treatments at the wildland-urban interface: common concerns in diverse regions. J For 100(1):15–21
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Urbas, J. (2018). Wetting Agents and Foams. In: Manzello, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Wildfires and Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fires. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51727-8_30-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51727-8_30-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-51727-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-51727-8
eBook Packages: Springer Reference EngineeringReference Module Computer Science and Engineering