RAPID/Collaborative Research: San Bruno, California, September 9, 2010, Gas Pipeline Explosion and Fire

RAPID/合作研究：加利福尼亚州圣布鲁诺，2010 年 9 月 9 日，天然气管道爆炸和火灾

• 批准号: 1103823
• 负责人: Rachel Davidson
• 金额: $ 3万
• 依托单位: University of Delaware
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-12-15 至 2011-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1103823&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RAPID; Collaborative; Research; San; Bruno

This Grant for Rapid Response Research (RAPID) provides funding to study the San Bruno explosion and fire. On September 9, 2010, in San Bruno, California, a suburb of San Francisco, a 30-inch steel natural gas pipeline exploded in flames, igniting a fire that ultimately killed seven residents and damaged or destroyed dozens of houses. An interdisciplinary field team will provide a holistic account of the event across the engineering and social sciences by gathering data on pre-event building, topography, and weather conditions; the rate and modes of fire spread and suppression; and elements of multiorganizational coordination and decisionmaking. The aims of the project are to: (a) improve understanding of how urban fires spread and are suppressed, (b) support development and validation of next-generation urban fire simulation models, and (c) advance theories of resilience. Scholars are now at work on the next generation of fire spread modeling, employing physics-based approaches that encompass many more variables and that explicitly consider variability in building composition, contents, and urban design. As the next generation of models, however, these have lacked opportunities for validation in actual fire scenarios. Thus analysis of the San Bruno fire will appreciably advance knowledge by improving understanding of urban fire spread and suppression, and by permitting validation and refinement of existing models. Management structures such as the Incident Command System (ICS) depend on information flow amongst organizations that are familiar with its use, in situations with recognized procedures. By studying coordination where system familiarity was present, but information was sketchy and ambiguous and procedures improvised, the study will refine our knowledge of the relative strengths of command structures as tools for interorganization decisionmaking. By explicitly considering the interaction of infrastructure capacities and management systems, the project recasts critical infrastructure to include human operators and their deliberate decisionmaking and interventions.The research team anticipates a number of broader impacts. These include the development and dissemination of improved fire-spread models for conflagrations in residential neighborhoods. These models, once validated, can inform the knowledge base of fire protection engineers and urban planners in their design of structures and spaces, as well as firefighters who may be confronted with such situations following earthquakes, landslips, or terrorist activity. Ground-level decisionmaking and coordination approaches will be bolstered by findings on the multiorganizational coordination of the event. The PIs teach numerous engineering and emergency management courses which will ensure that findings reach the user community both directly and through publications and presentations at relevant conferences and symposia. In addition, graduate students will develop skill in post-disaster fieldwork, to include engineering and social-science data gathering, analysis, and theory development. On a larger scale, recent sizable infrastructure failures, such as the collapse of the I35 bridge in Minneapolis, have highlighted the age and condition of US infrastructure. Information developed through this study may inform policymaking regarding burgeoning vulnerabilities in vital systems.

这项用于快速响应研究的赠款（Rapid）提供了研究圣布鲁诺爆炸和火灾的资金。 2010年9月9日，在加利福尼亚州圣布鲁诺（San Bruno），旧金山郊区，一条30英寸的钢制天然气管道在火焰中爆炸，点燃了一场大火，最终杀死了7名居民，并损坏或摧毁了数十座房屋。跨学科的野外团队将通过收集有关事件前建筑物，地形和天气状况的数据来对整个工程和社会科学的活动进行整体说明；火的速度和模式传播和抑制；以及多组织协调和决策的要素。该项目的目的是：（a）提高对城市大火如何传播和被抑制的理解，（b）支持下一代城市火灾模拟模型的开发和验证，以及（c）提高弹性理论。现在，学者们正在使用基于物理的方法，这些方法涵盖了更多的变量，并且可以明确考虑建筑成分，内容和城市设计的可变性。但是，作为下一代模型，这些模型缺乏在实际火灾场景中验证的机会。因此，对圣布鲁诺火灾的分析将通过提高对城市火灾传播和抑制的理解以及允许验证和改进现有模型来显着提高知识。在具有公认程序的情况下，诸如事件命令系统（IC）之类的管理结构依赖于熟悉其使用的组织之间的信息流。通过研究存在系统熟悉的协调性，但信息是粗略且模棱两可的，并且程序即兴创作，该研究将完善我们对命令结构的相对优势的了解，以此作为组织间决策的工具。通过明确考虑基础设施能力和管理系统的相互作用，该项目重塑了关键的基础设施，包括人类运营商及其故意的决策和干预措施。研究团队预计会有许多更广泛的影响。其中包括开发和传播改进的住宅区大火模型。这些模型一旦得到验证，就可以在其建筑物和空间设计中为消防工程师和城市规划师的知识库提供信息，以及在地震，陆地或恐怖活动之后可能面临这种情况的消防员。关于事件的多组织协调的发现将加强地面决策和协调方法。 PI教授众多工程和应急管理课程，这些课程将确保通过相关会议和座谈会上的出版物和演讲直接以及出版物和演讲来确保发现结果。此外，研究生将发展后迪沙斯特野外工作的技能，包括工程和社会科学数据收集，分析和理论发展。在更大范围内，最近的相当大的基础设施故障（例如明尼阿波利斯的I35桥的崩溃）强调了美国基础设施的年龄和状况。通过这项研究开发的信息可能会为有关重要系统中新兴脆弱性的决策提供信息。