Breaking the Chain: Visualizing Conflagration and Developing Imagery Intelligence

Presentation Abstract: This session explores how interactive visualization and citizen imagery serve as powerful tools for understanding conflagration in the WUI. We will focus on how modeling a full spectrum of mitigation—from landscape treatments to home hardening—can reveal strategic opportunities to break the chain of ignition between the wildland and structures, and from one structure to the next.

First, we will use a dynamic model to visualize the implications of the built environment on fire spread. Using real-world data, we will contrast scenarios to see how mitigation efforts change outcomes. In a hands-on exercise, audience groups will interact with a high-risk neighborhood and use the model to propose and visualize the effect of different home hardening and mitigation strategies to improve the survival rate of the neighborhood. The goal is to provide a way for people to interact with the common denominators of conflagration, and to find ways to mitigate risks and estimate the efficiency of mitigations that can potentially 'break the chain'.

The second part introduces a "sousveillance" (peer-to-peer watchfulness) approach using distributed imagery to create digital twins of the fire environment. Using examples from a prescribed fire and a reconstructed wildfire, we'll show how this information supports rate-of-spread analysis in both traditional fuel environments and wui environments with structures as a fire behavior component. After a demonstration on best practices for capturing useful imagery, participants will submit their own photos for visual investigation starting with imagery calibration and then geospatial data derivation. We will use a selection of these along with pre-filtered imagery we can leverage if attendee imagery does not fulfill our use cases to highlight how citizen-provided situational awareness can fill critical information gaps during both preparedness and response phases.