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Estimating fire following earthquake risk for Wellington City, New Zealand

Author(s): ORCID




Medium: journal article
Language(s): English
Published in: Bulletin of the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering, , n. 4, v. 55
Page(s): 241-256
DOI: 10.5459/bnzsee.55.4.241-256
Abstract:

Fire following earthquake (FFE) is a significant hazard in urban areas subject to high seismicity. Wellington City has many characteristics that make it susceptible to ignitions and fire spread. These include proximity to major active faults, closely spaced timber-clad buildings, vulnerable water and gas infrastructure, frequent high winds and challenging access for emergency services. We modelled the ignitions, fire spread and suppression for five earthquake sources. Uncertainty in ground motions, the number and location of ignitions, weather conditions and firefighting capacity were accounted for. The mean loss per burn zone (area burnt due to ignition and fire spread) is $46m without fire suppression, indicating the potential property damage avoided by controlling the fire spread. The mean total loss for earthquake scenarios ranges from $0.28b for the Wairau Fault through to $3.17b for a Hikurangi Subduction Zone scenario, including the influence of fire suppression. Wind speed has a strong influence on the potential losses for each simulation and is a more significant factor than the number of ignitions for evaluating losses. Areas in Wellington City of relatively high risk are identified, which may inform risk mitigation strategies. The models may be applied to other urban areas.

Copyright: © 2022 Finn Scheele, Biljana Lukovic, Jose Moratalla, Alexandre Dunant, Nick Horspool
License:

This creative work has been published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY 4.0) license which allows copying, and redistribution as well as adaptation of the original work provided appropriate credit is given to the original author and the conditions of the license are met.

  • About this
    data sheet
  • Reference-ID
    10700933
  • Published on:
    11/12/2022
  • Last updated on:
    15/02/2023
 
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