Fire Technology - Special Issue: Human Behaviour in Fire – Building Upon the Seminal Works of Dr. Rita Fahy
Guest Editors:
Dr. Erica Kuligowski, RMIT University, Australia
Asst. Prof. Enrico Ronchi, Lund University, Sweden
Asst. Prof. Ruggiero Lovreglio, Massey University, New Zealand
Dr. Silvia Arias, Lund University, Sweden
Submission Status: Open | Submission Deadline: 31 August 2024
Description
This Special Issue commemorates Dr. Rita Fahy, an internationally recognised expert in evacuation modelling and human behaviour in fire, who died of cancer on 12 July 2023 at 67 years old. In honour of Dr. Fahy’s passing, we invite researchers to submit manuscripts that build upon the pioneering work of Dr. Fahy and contribute to the field of human behaviour in fire. Submitted articles may focus on the following suggested topics: evacuation modelling, data collection of human behaviour in fires, and emergency communications that counter the myths surrounding the panic concept. Additional topics within human behaviour in fire are also encouraged, however, all submitted articles are expected to highlight how they build upon the work of Dr. Fahy to improve the safety of people living, visiting, and working in buildings and communities around the world.
This Collection supports and amplifies research related to United Nation Sustainable Development Goal 11: Sustainable Cities & Communities (this opens in a new tab).
Submission guidelines
All papers must be prepared in accordance with the Instructions for Authors (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 – "Human Behaviour in Fire".
Submitted papers should present original, unpublished work, relevant to one of the topics of the Special Issue.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.
Meet the Guest Editors
Dr. Erica Kuligowski is an ARC Future Fellow and Principal Research Fellow in the School of Engineering at RMIT University. With a PhD in Sociology and MS and BS degrees in Fire Engineering, she has led interdisciplinary research studies of human response to hazards and disasters to improve the safety of people in buildings and communities around the world. At RMIT, Dr. Kuligowski leads research projects studying how households protect themselves during disasters, and in the process, collects human response data using both traditional (surveys, interviews and focus groups) and newer techniques (social media messages, GPS-based mobile phone signals, and virtual reality experiments). She joins RMIT University from the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology's Engineering Laboratory where her research on evacuation and sheltering behaviour and emergency communications in disaster events, including building fire, severe weather, and bushfire. Dr. Kuligowski has written eight book chapters, 60 journal articles, and over 40 government agency reports, conference papers, trade journals articles, and media articles. Her work has led to the development of new or improved building codes and community standards, decision-making tools for disaster response such as evacuation models, and emergency alert/warning creation tools and templates.
Dr. Enrico Ronchi is an Associate Professor in Evacuation Modelling at the Department of Fire Safety Engineering and at the Department of Transport and Roads at Lund University (Sweden). Dr. Ronchi has been a Guest Researcher at the Department of Psychology at University of Wurzburg (Germany), the Fire Research Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg (USA), the GIDAI Group at University of Cantabria (Spain), the Hazelab at Imperial College London (UK) and the School of Human Sciences at Waseda University (Japan). Dr. Ronchi holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Roads and Transportation at the Polytechnic University of Bari (Italy). He is an Associate Editor of the journal Fire Technology, Associate Editor of Safety Science (published by Elsevier) and part of the editorial board of the Fire Safety Journal (published by Elsevier) and the European Magazine of the Society of Fire Protection Engineering (SFPE).
Dr. Ruggiero Lovreglio is an Associate Professor at Massey University (New Zealand) and a Rutherford Discovery Fellow for Royal Society NZ. Dr. Lovreglio is also an Associate Editor for Safety Science (Elsevier), Fire Technology, Frontiers in Computer Science and Frontiers in Psychology and part of the Editorial Board of Fire Safety Journal. Dr. Lovreglio represents New Zealand in the ISO/TC 92/SC 4/WG 11 committee in Fire Safety Engineering. Dr. Lovreglio’s research investigates human behavior in disasters using Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality and how to improve safety training. He is the recipient of the 2020 Massey Research Medal - Early Career and the 2020 College of Science Research Award - Early Career, as well as the 5 under 35 SFPE award in 2022. Dr. Lovreglio has published more than 70 journal papers and 40 conference papers and chapters on pedestrian and evacuation modelling, evacuee decision-making and data analysis.
Dr. Silvia Arias is a post-doctoral research fellow at Lund University specializing in the study of human behaviour in fire scenarios using both physical and virtual reality experiments. Dr. Arias has worked at Arup as a fire safety engineer and received her PhD from Lund University in 2022. She is one of the recipients of the Jack Bono Award for Engineering Communication for the article “A Study on Evacuation Behavior in Physical and Virtual Reality Experiments.”