The pace of progress in the design of, and materials for, fire resistant buildings and other structures is rapidly accelerating. For engineered buildings in urban centers, an ongoing evolution from the current prescriptive approaches toward performance-based design (PBD) methodologies has enabled creative solutions for ensuring structural fire resistance. Within individual households and residential communities, more sensitive smoke and flame detection, rapid prototyping to bring innovative products to market, modernized systems for evaluating the impact of new fire protection technologies on residential life safety, and advances in state-of-the-art risk reduction tools and practices for fires at the wildland-urban interface are guiding development of more effective codes and standards that reduce residential fire losses. The objective of this special collection is to compile high quality papers that explore topics related to advances in fire protection, response, technologies, and tactics that can improve the resilience of communities and structures to fires by enabling fire resistant design and assessment of structures. This collection of papers will serve as a resource for researchers, practitioners, and educators interested in understanding emerging trends and opportunities related to structural fire engineering at the urban interface.
While the editors of JAE are interested in a wide range of topics, several sub-topics related to specific emerging areas of national interest include (but are not limited to): Performance-based design for fires; Wildland-Urban Interface fires; Advances in materials for fire resistance and protection; Advances in technologies for fire resistance and protection, including early warning (e.g., fire suppression technologies, smoke alarms, flame detectors); Community emergency response tactics and firefighting; Development of fire and building codes and standards (from individual household to community to regional scale); Documenting trends in education related to fire protection.