Join this workshop to hear from an international group of experts at the intersection of wood and wildfire. After an informative panel we’ll tackle some hard-hitting questions percolating in this space. What do we need to change about urban planning to be ready for wildfire? What have we learned about housing density and wildfire risk? Is the threat of wildfire spreading inwards the same as a house fire spreading outwards when it comes to mass timber? Can wood housing provide a solution for short-term recovery for communities impacted and displaced by wildfire? Can we create a truly wildfire-resistant wood home? Come prepared to learn, to debate, to discuss, to collaborate. We hope to see you there!
Participants
Monireh Aram, Scientist. Fire Protection, FPInnovations
Moderator
14:00 – 14:10
Dr. Monireh Aram is a scientist in the Building Systems group at FPInnovations. She earned her Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the Université de Sherbrooke in 2023, where her research focused on fire events related to building façades and smoke control in fires involving building-integrated photovoltaic systems. With extensive experience in modeling of complex building materials and experiments, she has been actively involved in research, modeling, and experimentation of timber structures, wood-based materials, and timber construction techniques since joining FPInnovations. Her work has resulted in several impactful articles, reports, as well as the development of guides and technical sheets.
Noureddine Benichou, Principal Research Officer, NRC
Measures to Increase Wildfire Resilience in the Wildland-Urban Interface
14:10 – 14:40
Dr. Noureddine Bénichou is a Principal Research Officer at the National Research Council of Canada. He holds a Ph.D. from Carleton University in Civil and Environmental Engineering and has developed into an international fire expert through an extensive experience in the experimentation and modeling of fire phenomenon. His research areas include fire resistance modeling and experimentation of structures, fire safety in buildings, fire risk analysis, and wildfire impacts on the wildland-urban interface (WUI). He led and completed large R&D projects to advance understanding of fire conditions and its impact on the occupant population, and assessing this impact in terms of risk and cost, including projects on the development of tools, guides and standards to increase the resilience of the built environment against WUI fires. Dr. Bénichou is the author of over 350 technical publications. He was elected as a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering in 2024, and received the 2023 Public Service Award of Excellence, the 2022 Fire Researcher of the Year from the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs in, and the 2021 Sjölin Award from the International FORUM of Fire Research Directors, for his global reputation and outstanding lifetime contributions to fire-safety engineering and practices. Dr. Bénichou represents Canada in ISO Sub-Committee 4 on Fire Safety Engineering; is a member of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers, the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers, and Conseil International du Bâtiment; and is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carleton University.
Jason Smart, Senior Director, Fire Engineering, American Wood Council
Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Hardening: AWC WUI Fire Test Summary
14:40 – 15:10
Jason is AWC’s Senior Director of Fire Engineering. He leads AWC’s efforts related to fire safety and acoustical performance of wood construction, serves on several technical committees and participates in the model code development process on behalf of AWC. Prior to joining AWC, he worked for the International Code Council Evaluation Service (ICC-ES) and the Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS). Jason is a licensed professional engineer and a graduate of Virginia Tech with a bachelor’s degree in Wood Science and Forest Products and a master’s in Civil Engineering.
Bruce Blackwell, President, Blackwell Consulting Limited Ltd.
The Wildfire Problem and the Application of FireSmart – Guidance Applied to Wood Construction
15:10 – 15:40
Bruce has over 37 years of experience as a professional forester and biologist, primarily focused on fire and forest ecology, forest management, wildland/urban interface planning, forest policy, and practice audits and reviews. Bruce is considered a provincial fire and fuels management expert and has managed numerous innovative fire risk identification and mitigation projects for the public and private sectors. He has provided expert opinion testimony and myriad interviews on wildfire in BC. Bruce assisted the Firestorm 2003 Review Team in developing forest management and policy recommendations to mitigate the risk of catastrophic fires in BC’s wildland/urban interface. In Alberta, Bruce has been involved with developing the provincial fire management planning standard and the first landscape-scale fire management plans and risk assessments. More recently, Bruce completed a wildfire risk analysis of the BC Hydro electrical system, and he is supporting the BC Wildfire Service in developing a Provincial Wildfire Risk Assessment. He has been a fire science and management instructor at the University of British Columbia and the British Columbia Institute of Technology.
Erica Fischer, Associate Professor, Oregon State University
Building Resilience: A Collaborative Framework for Mitigating Wildfire Impacts on Communities
16:10 – 16:40
Erica Fischer, PhD, PE is an Associate Professor of Civil and Construction Engineering and the Glenn Willis Holcomb Professor in Structural Engineering at Oregon State University. Dr. Fischer’s research interests revolve around innovative approaches to improve the resilience and robustness of structural systems affected by natural and man-made hazards. Dr. Fischer performs research on a variety of different structural systems including steel, timber (CLT), composites (concrete-CLT and steel-concrete), and thin shells subjected to hazards such as earthquakes and fires. She has participated in post-earthquake reconnaissance team missions in diverse regions including Haiti, Napa, California, Italy, and Mexico City; and led post-wildfire reconnaissance after the 2018 Camp Fire, 2021 Marshall Fire, and recently after the 2025 Eaton and Palisades Fires in LA. Dr. Fischer has experience as a practicing structural engineer and holds a Professional Engineering license in the states of Washington, California, and Oregon. She is a voting member of AISC Task Committee 5 and AISC Task Committee 8.
Greg Baxter, Senior Researcher Wildfire Operations, FPInnovations
Post-fire Data Collection in the Wildland Urban Interface
16:40 – 17:10
Greg has worked with FPInnovations since 2001 where he has focused on fuels research, firefighter safety, and now on community protection research. Over the last four years he has developed a data collection framework for the purpose of collecting fuels and structure data prior to a wildfire arriving in and around structures as well as completing post-fire structure analysis. The data will be used to enhance educational tools that provide homeowners structure protection practices and identify appropriate construction methods/materials that will reduce the impact of wildfire in the WUI. To supplement this, experimental crown fire in the NWT has been used on structures built to various construction standards.
Greg is also involved in evaluating the effectiveness of fuel treatments in and around communities that have been impacted by wildfire. Following the damaging WUI wildfires of 2023 in British Columbia, Greg’s focus has shifted to documenting fire behaviour, fuels, and structural damage in a post-fire environment. Greg is also directly involved in FPInnovations’ 3-year undertaking to standardize data collection in their Wildfire Community Impact Research (WCIR) project.
Monireh Aram, Scientist. Fire Protection, FPInnovations
Q&A
17:10 – 18:00
MR 111 – 112
Bruce Blackwell, Erica Fischer, Greg Baxter, Jason Smart, Monireh Aram, Noureddine Benichou
English (Canada) 
French