Fire Technology - Special Issue: Fire Safety of Informal Settlements and Historic Buildings

Guest Editors
Prof. Yu Wang, State Key Laboratory of Fire China, China
Dr. David Rush, University of Edinburgh, UK
Ms. Danielle Antonellis, Kindling, USA
Dr. Keisuke Himoto, NILIM, Japan
Dr. Lesley Gibson, Agricultural Research Council, South Africa

Summary and scope
A common characteristic of informal settlements and historic buildings is that they often do not comply with local code requirements, such as separation distances, structural resistance rating, or firefighting and rescue facilities, to name just a few. Examples are shacks, refugee camps, traditional/ancient villages, castles, and palaces. It is a challenge to alter these buildings to include current fire protection features due to the complexity, cost and architectural consequences of the alterations. In addition, updating the fire safety of informal settlements and historic buildings must consider also the broader social, economic and political contexts, which could be very different to other building types.

Fires in informal settlements and historic buildings occur with some frequently all over the world. This Special Issue is devoted to understanding the risks, fire development, and resilience of these buildings and communities.

The following topics are of special interest:

• Materials behavior and structures in fire
• Fire spread and fire development
• Detection, compartmentation, and firefighting
• Evacuation and human behavior
• Fire protection optimization
• Risk assessments
• Remote sensing and geospatial analysis
• Sociotechnical aspects
• Resilience

Submission guidelines
All papers must be prepared in accordance with the Instructions for Authors at: https://www.springer.com/journal/10694/submission-guidelines (this opens in a new tab). Authors should submit through the online submission site (this opens in a new tab) and select article type “SI – Informal Settlements and Historic Buildings". 

Submitted papers should present original, unpublished work, relevant to one of the topics of the Special Issue. All submitted papers will be evaluated on the basis of relevance, significance of contribution, technical quality, scholarship, and quality of presentation, by at least two independent reviewers. It is the policy of the journal that no submission, or substantially overlapping submission, be published or be under review at another journal or conference at any time during the review process. Final decisions on all papers are made by the Editor-in-Chief.