Sustainable and Fire Resilient Built Environment (SAFR-BE)

Fire impacts to the environment come from both natural and human-caused sources. Managing both often requires different strategies, and can be pursued without consideration of the interface between the natural and technological worlds. However, as society has looked to minimizing the impact on the natural world by implementing sustainability strategies, and more recently has recognized the need to make human settlements resilient as well as sustainable, the need to create sustainable and resilient human development has emerged. When one further considers the interrelationships between carbon emissions, climate change and climate impacts, this need becomes imminent. While this is true for many hazards, fire is a particular hazard of concern, since fire as a natural hazard is being increased in frequency and intensity by changes in climate that are increasing drought conditions and high temperatures, and fire as a technological hazard can be inadvertently increased by implementation of energy sustainability measures, such as localized energy sources (e.g., photovoltaics) creating potential ignition hazards, and thermal insulation (specifically combustible materials) creating additional fuel load. In order to most comprehensively address and mitigate the increasing fire risk is to adopt the concepts of a Sustainable And Fire Resilient Built Environment (SAFR-BE), where the built environment includes buildings (structures, facilities), infrastructure and communities. This chapter introduces the concept of SAFR-BE and how such holistic thinking can be applied to reduce environmental and other impacts of fire.