Workshops will take place as follows:

MaCFP : the fourth workshop organized by the IAFSS Working Group on Measurement and Computation of Fire Phenomena (the MaCFP Working Group).

The general objective of the “IAFSS Measurement and Computation of Fire Phenomena Working Group” (abbreviated as the “MaCFP Working Group”) is to establish a structured effort in the fire research community to make significant and systematic progress in fire modeling, based on a fundamental understanding of fire phenomena.It is composed of 3 subgroups :

‍Gas Phase Phenomena   Condensed Phase Phenomena  Radiative Heat Transfer Phenomena

LOF&BE : the workshop of the Large Outdoor Fires & the Built Environment (LOF&BE).

The LOF&BE working group addresses problems with key phenomenological shared characteristics relevant to urban fires, and wildland-urban interface (WUI) fires, wildland fires as well as informal settlement fires.The working group consists of three subgroups focused on the topics of:

• Ignition Resistant Communities (IRC)
• Emergency Management and Evacuation (EME)
• Large Outdoor Firefighting (LOFF). It is also expected that three subgroup will be collaborating at a later stage.

HBiF : the workshop of the Human Behaviour in Fires (HBiF) Working Group seeks to engage in advancing research and application in practice of all aspects of the broad discipline of human behaviour in fire.

AI/ML : the workshop concerning Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) within the fire science community.

Energy Systems : the workshop on Energy Systems Safety, concerning notably Li-Ion batteries, photovoltaics, energy generation and storage

Standing Working Groups

MaCFP-4: The fourth workshop organized by the IAFSS Working Group on Measurement and Computation of Fire Phenomena (the MaCFP Working Group)

Co-Chairs:

Isaac Leventon, National Institute of Standards and Technology (USA)

Bart Merci, Ghent University (Belgium)

Arnaud Trouvé, University of Maryland (USA) 

Objectives and General Workshop Overview:

The general objective of the IAFSS Working Group on Measurement and Computation of Fire Phenomena (MaCFP) is to establish a structured effort in the fire research community to make significant and systematic progress in fire modeling, based on a fundamental understanding of fire phenomena. This is to be achieved as a joint effort between experimentalists and modelers, identifying key research topics of interest as well as knowledge gaps, and thereby establishing a common framework for fire modeling research. The MaCFP Working Group is intended as an open, community-wide, international collaboration between fire scientists.

The fourth Measurement and Computation of Fire Phenomena Workshop (MaCFP-4) is scheduled to take place over one and a half days (full day Saturday plus Sunday morning), June 6-7, 2026, prior to the 15th IAFSS Symposium in La Rochelle, France.  There will be a poster session early Saturday evening to enable further discussion of experimental and modeling results.

Guidelines for Participation:

Instructions for the pre-workshop pyrolysis and radiation heat transfer exercises, descriptions of target experiments, and general participation guidelines are spelled out and kept current at the MaCFP-4 GitHub site.  The MaCFP subgroups will focus on the following target cases:

1. Condensed Phase Subgroup Target Case: 

• Pyrolysis modeling exercise, pine wood (charring)
  
  • Experimentalists - Perform tests and share data on the MaCFP GitHub Repository (2025)
  • Modelers - Calibrate material property sets using this data (2026); perform simulations of 0D thermal decomposition and 1D gasification

2. Radiation Heat Transfer Subgroup Target Cases:

• Modeling exercise: predict the radiation fields of benchmark combustion systems
• Characterization of absorption and emissivity (pyrolysis modeling exercise)

3. Gas Phase Subgroup Target Cases:

• Soot formation/oxidation and thermal radiation transport (FM Burner)
• Upward flame spread (constrained modeling exercise)
• Compartment/façade fires (study of flame structure and heat transfer)

Poster submission:

Further information on MaCFP poster submission will be forthcoming.

Large Outdoor Fires and the Built Environment (LOF&BE)

LOF&BE Co-Leaders:

Samuel L. Manzello, Tohoku University, Japan and Reax Engineering, USA

Sara McAllister USDA Forest Service, USA

Sayaka Suzuki, Institute of Science Tokyo, Japan

Ignition Resistant Communities (IRC) Subgroup Leaders:

Alex Filkov, University of Melbourne, Australia

Nima Masoudvaziri, Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance, USA

Rafal Porowski, Jan Kochanowski University, Poland

Emergency Management and Evacuation (EME) Subgroup Leaders:

Ankit Sharma, Jensen Hughes, USA

Yu Wang, USTC, P.R. China

Objectives and General Workshop Overview:

The International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS) established the permanent working group known as LOF&BE (Large Outdoor Fires and the Built Environment, https://iafss.org/lofbe/), as an outgrowth of the 2017 Lund Workshops held in conjunction with the 12th IAFSS Symposium.  LOF&BE aims to bring the community together to tackle large outdoor fire problems such as wildland fires, wildland-urban interface (WUI) fires, urban fires, and informal settlement fires. LOF&BE currently consists of two subgroups - Ignition Resistant Communities (IRC), and Emergency Management and Evacuation (EME) – and a fire service panel.  The IRC subgroup is focused on developing the scientific understanding that will lead to new standards, testing methodologies, and mitigation strategies indicative of large outdoor fire exposures, including the ones from wildland to communities and within communities.  The EME subgroup is focused on developing the scientific basis for effective emergency management strategies for communities exposed to large outdoor fires.  LOF&BE working group will be holding two workshop sessions: the first one will focus on the work of the IRC and EME subgroups, while the second will focus on a new initiative “LOF&BE Cone Calorimeter Data Comparison.”

Scope and Format of Workshop:

First workshop session 

This workshop will highlight the progress to date of the IRC and EME subgroup, questions and discussion on progress, and finally an open discussion for LOF&BE future activities.  

Second workshop session 

A long used experimental tool in the fire research field for fires inside buildings has been the cone calorimeter.  Yet, it is not apparent how useful the cone calorimeter is to study fuels found in large outdoor fires, such as WUI fires. What types of data have been collected using the cone calorimeter for large outdoor fire fuels?  For what purposes?  IAFSS LOF&BE desires to collect cone calorimeter data and compare them among various large outdoor fuel types.  This workshop will highlight the progress of LOF&BE cone calorimeter data comparison, comparing the data of wildland fuels, WUI fuels, urban fuels or informal settlement fuels.  A summary and comparison would be presented and participants in this activity will be invited to present their own data.  We will discuss how to best compare the various large outdoor fuels.

Human Behaviour In Fires Permanent Group Workshop

In this workshop, the Human Behaviour in Fires group will provide updates on the ongoing activities within the group (https://iafss.org/hbif/). The workshop will include presentations and discussions concerning the latest work performed in the development of a research roadmap in the field, namely: 1) identifying the areas needing research, 2) reviewing the existing research landscape in building/wildfire fields concerning human behaviour and 3) documenting the challenges of and obstacles to additional research. During the workshop, the group’s ongoing webinar series will also be discussed, providing an opportunity for workshop participants to suggest ideas for future webinar topics and for the group to promote the participation of early career researchers in the activities of the group.