Resilience of Industrial Buildings to Wildland-Urban Interface Fires

Abstract Forest fires have affected the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) in the last years with greater violence, causing damage to houses, industrial and commercial buildings. Businesses face the same fire hazard as houses but with a much greater potential due to labour interruption, job losses, and tax revenue impacts. In Canada, forest fires affected oilsand camps in 2011 and 2016, disrupting oil and gas production and damages of billions of Canadian Dollars. Camp Fire in 2018, the most destructive forest fire to date in the United States, destroyed houses, commercial buildings and other structures. In Portugal, the 2017 Large Forest Fires caused damages to almost 600 industrial buildings in the WUI and million euros losses. Assessing post-fire damage provides valuable information for future planning, fire risk mitigation, and improving fire resilience in the built environment. Considering WUI fires’ economic and social impact in industrial areas is essential to better understand this particular situation. In this sense, following the forest fires of 2017 in Portugal, a field research was conducted to assess the type of industrial building damages endured and know which construction systems were employed in their repair. The assessment considered the type of structure, materials used in facades and roofs, type of openings, ground waterproofing of uncovered areas, and material storage usage. There was also a verification of the materials used after the rehabilitation. This last stage concludes that building fire regulation needs to change for mitigating the risk of industrial buildings getting destroyed by Forest Fires in the WUI.