Due to the COVID-19 restrictions, on-site Incident Commander (IC) practical training and examinations in Sweden were canceled as of March 2020. The graduation of one IC class was, however, conducted through Remote Virtual Simulation (RVS), the first such examination to our current knowledge. This paper presents the necessary enablers for setting up RVS and its influence on cognitive aspects of assessing practical competences. Data were gathered through observations, questionnaires, and interviews from students and instructors, using action-case research methodology. The results show the potential of RVS for supporting higher cognitive processes, such as recognition, comprehension, problem solving, decision making, and allowed students to demonstrate whether they had achieved the required learning objectives. Other reported benefits were the value of not gathering people (imposed by the pandemic), experiencing new, challenging incident scenarios, increased motivation for applying RVS based training both for students and instructors, and reduced traveling (corresponding to 15,400 km for a class). While further research is needed for defining how to integrate RVS in practical training and assessment for IC education and for increased generalizability, this research pinpoints current benefits and limitations, in relation to the cognitive aspects and in comparison, to previous examination formats.

Background: Coastal Norwegian heathlands have been regularly managed by burning for about 5000 years. This practice, supporting sustainable herbivore production, did, however, seize in the 1950s and was virtually absent for 60–70 years. Loss of biodiversity, increased fire hazard due to biomass accumulation and loss of visual landscape qualities recently propelled new interest in traditional landscape management. Loss of know-how makes this a dangerous activity. The present study focuses on the emergence and learning processes of a civic group established for resuming prescribed burning in Northern Rogaland in order to possibly assist similar initiatives elsewhere. Methods: Study of written information, interviews with core prescribed burners and participant observation have been undertaken. The topics at four annual prescribed burning seminars, arranged by the studied civic group, have been analyzed. Participant observation at civic group winter meetings, debriefing sessions and field work has also been undertaken. Results: Pioneers who, without guidance, resumed prescribed burning relied on experience gained as part-time firefighters and relations to farming, in particular sheep grazing. Building good relations with local fire brigades and support by local and regional environmental authorities (especially the local agricultural advisory office) enhanced the practice. Short weather window, assembling a big enough burner group on the working days, as well as possible liability issues were identified as challenges. They were self-taught through “learning by doing” and open to new technologies/artifacts, i.e., leaf blowers for fire control. Their use of artifacts, together with supporting the fire brigades during a wildfire, strengthened their group identity. A connection to academia improved the focus on safe and effective prescribed burning through deeper insight into the physical parameters that govern burning in the terrain. Conclusions: The study provides valuable insight into favorable preconditions and possible key personnel for resuming prescribed burning in other areas in Norway and elsewhere. Content and teaching methods for a possible future standardized prescribed heathland burning course are suggested.

In recent years, severe and deadly wildland-urban interface (WUI) fires have resulted in an increased focus on this particular risk to humans and property, especially in Canada, USA, Australia, and countries in the Mediterranean area. Also, in areas not previously accustomed to wildfires, such as boreal areas in Sweden, Norway, and in the Arctic, WUI fires have recently resulted in increasing concern. January 2014, the most severe wooden town fire in Norway since 1923 raged through Lærdalsøyri. Ten days later, a wildfire raged through the scattered populated community of Flatanger and destroyed even more structures. These fires came as a surprise to the fire brigades and the public. We describe and analyze a proposed way forward for exploring if and how this increasing fire incidence can be linked to concomitant changes in climate, land-use, and habitat management; and then aim at developing new dynamic adaptive fire risk assessment and management tools. We use coastal Norway as an example and focus on temporal changes in fire risk in wooden structure settlements and in the Norwegian Calluna vulgaris L. dominated WUI. In this interface, the fire risk is now increasing due to a combination of land-use changes, resulting in large areas of early successional vegetation with an accumulation of biomass, and the interactive effects of climatic changes resulting in increased drought risk. We propose a novel bow-tie framework to explore fire risk and preventive measures at various timescales (years, months, weeks, hours) as a conceptual model for exploring risk contributing factors and possibilities for risk management. Ignition is the top event of the bow-tie which has the potential development towards a fire disaster as a worst case outcome. The bow-tie framework includes factors such as changes in the built environment and natural habitat fuel moisture content due to the weather conditions, WUI fuel accumulation, possibly improved ecosystem management, contribution by civic prescribed burner groups, relevant fire risk modeling, and risk communication to the fire brigades and the public. We propose an interdisciplinary research agenda for developing this framework and improving the current risk understanding, risk communication, and risk management. This research agenda will represent important contributions in paving the road for fire disaster prevention in Norway, and may provide a model for other systems and regions.

In the present work, the cooling efficiency of water droplets falling onto hot aluminum and stainless steel discs from heights of 12.5 cm, 25 cm, 50 cm and 100 cm, corresponding to speeds of 1.5 m/s, 2.2 m/s, 3.1 m/s and 4.4 m/s, respectively, were studied. The discs were aligned at 0° (horizontal), 30° and 60° inclination. The water application rate was 0.022 g/s and the droplet diameters studied were 2.5 mm, 3.2 mm and 3.7 mm. Acetone solutions (300 ppm and 700 ppm) as well as a NaCl (35 g/kg) solution, emulating seawater, were tested to evaluate the influence of an active surfactant on the recorded cooling efficiency. The droplets with higher impact speed resulted in lower cooling efficiency, especially at disc temperatures above the Leidenfrost temperature, likely due to more vigorous droplets bouncing. Larger inclination did, as expected, result in lower cooling efficiency. At temperatures associated with nucleate boiling, the water droplets with NaCl conspicuously displayed higher cooling efficiency at about 110 °C. However, at temperatures between 120 °C and the Leidenfrost temperature, acetone and NaCl additives did not significantly alter the cooling efficiency of the water droplets. Above the Leidenfrost temperature, a minor increase in cooling efficiency was observed for the acetone solutions. Overall, the additives only marginally changed the water droplet cooling efficiency. The standard industrial water application rate (i.e., 10 L/min∙m²) is shown to be insufficient compared to the heat fluxes expected in pool and jet fires (i.e., 250 kW/m² and 350 kW/m², respectively).

Thermal insulation is used for preventing heat losses or heat gains in various applications. In industries that process combustible products, inorganic-materials-based thermal insulation may, if proven sufficiently heat resistant, also provide heat protection in fire incidents. The present study investigated the performance and breakdown temperature of industrial thermal insulation exposed to temperatures up to 1200 °C, i.e., temperatures associated with severe hydrocarbon fires. The thermal insulation properties were investigated using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and by heating 50 mm cubes in a muffle furnace to temperatures in the range of 600 to 1200 °C with a 30 min holding time. The room temperature thermal conductivity was also recorded after each heat treatment. Upon heating, the mineral-based oil dust binder was released at temperatures in the range of 300 to 500 °C, while the Bakelite binder was released at temperatures in the range of 850 to 960 °C. The 50 mm test cubes experienced increasing levels of sintering in the temperature range of 700 to 1100 °C. At temperatures above 1100 °C, the thermal insulation started degrading significantly. Due to being heat-treated to 1200 °C, the test specimen morphology was similar to a slightly porous rock and the original density of 140 kg/m³ increased to 1700 kg/m³. Similarly, the room temperature thermal conductivity increased from 0.041 to 0.22 W/m∙K. The DSC analysis confirmed an endothermic peak at about 1200 °C, indicating melting, which explained the increase in density and thermal conductivity. Recently, 350 kW/m² has been set as a test target heat flux, i.e., corresponding to an adiabatic temperature of 1200 °C. If a thin layer of thermally robust insulation is placed at the heat-exposed side, the studied thermal insulation may provide significant passive fire protection, even when exposed to heat fluxes up to 350 kW/m². It is suggested that this is further analysed in future studies.