News

In February, researchers from South Africa and Botswana will visit Japan to undergo training on combustion research. The training is part of a project supported by a Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) program, aimed at improving the resilience of local communities against wildfires in southern Africa, particularly focusing on firebrand showers.

Firebrand Showers

The fires that raged across Los Angeles this January brought into sharp focus the dangers wildfires pose to urban areas.

Scientists dub these fires wildland urban interface (WUI) fires, where wildfires encroach into urban spaces, leaving behind destruction reminiscent of an apocalyptic movie.

Similar catastrophes seen in Greece, Maui and Canada show that the prevalence of WUI fires is on the rise.

During WUI fires, small, hot and carbonaceous particles known as embers can become airborne, turning into firebrands that create additional fires ahead of the main flames. These 'firebrand showers' account for up to 90% of structural damage in WUI fires. Drier conditions caused by climate-change also provide fertile grounds for firebrand showers.

Enter the Dragon

Tohoku University's Samuel Manzello, a professor at the Institute of Fluid Science (IFS), has long held an interest in combustion research. Yet his initial attempts to study WUI fires encountered hurdles.

"In the early days of our research, no one was interested in WUI fire research and so it was nearly impossible to get funding. Complicating this was the fact that US wildfires were dealt with by one department and traditional building fires by another. There was no unified approach to address these issues," says Manzello.

Additionally, researchers lacked the ability to experimentally test the behaviour of firebrand showers.

"After talking with researchers and fire service personnel, I came to learn that, whilst many understood that firebrand showers are a critical problem, they had no means of recreating them in a laboratory setting. I realized that if I wanted to conduct experiments on firebrand showers, I would have to invent one myself."

And he did. The Firebrand Generator is a combustion device designed to replicate the behavior of firebrands in a controlled setting. Nicknamed the 'Dragon,' it has helped drive vital improvements in building codes and fire safety standards. It is the first internationally accepted harmonized device for generating firebrand showers.

This, along with Manzello's other research in fire and combustion, led the US National Institute of Standards and Technology to award him the Samuel Wesley Stratton Award in 2017.

Improving Resilience in Southern Africa

JST established the Africa-Japan Collaborative Research (AJ-CORE) in 2019 to support joint research projects between Africa and Japan. In 2023, the AfriWUIFire project was launched, bringing together experts from Botswana, Japan and South Africa to help mitigate the threat of WUI fires.

As part of this project, IFS signed a collaborative research agreement with the Institute of Science Tokyo, Sol Plaatje University, Stellenbosch University, and the Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

In April, Manzello, along with Sayaka Suzuki from the Institute of Science Tokyo, traveled to South Africa to evaluate the local WUI fire hazards, and then went to Botswana to attend the AJ-CORE workshop, where members presented their project to representatives from JST, members of other AJ-CORE projects, representatives from various funding agencies, and government officials.

Now, it is the African team's turn to visit Japan. Manzello and Suzuki will lead training that teaches researchers how to conduct full-scale vegetation combustion experiments and quantify firebrands. The training will focus on characterizing firebrand hazards specific to southern African vegetation.

Outside of the laboratory, Manzello hopes the researchers will get a taste of Japan. "This will be their first-time visiting Japan, so we hope to expose them to Japanese food and culture."