Modeling roadway temperatures for wildfire evacuation and assessment of pavement damage

Abstract

AbstractWildfires can cause enormous loss of assets and human lives, and thus, timely evacuation from the wildfire zone is critical to saving lives. Understanding evacuation route conditions, including traffic and temperature data, is imperative for safe evacuation. This study modeled the temperature conditions of an evacuation roadway within a wildfire zone, using the 2018 Camp Fire in Butte County, California as an experiment. The numerical modeling program, FlamMap, was used in this study to analyze the temperature conditions of an evacuation route. The results show that the temperature of the evacuation roadway increased quickly in a matter of a few hours. The change of roadways temperatures ranged from 3°C to 297°C within five hours after ignition, depending on the specific location along the roadway and other conditions. The results from this study can be used to understand temperature conditions for effective evacuation and to estimate roadway damage as well.