Christiansen, K.; Mostafiz, R.B.; Assi, A.A.; Friedland, C.J.; Rohli, R.V.; Dunn, C.J. Physical Impacts of 2020 Labor Day Wildfires to Oregon Highways. Preprints2023, 2023100578. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202310.0578.v1
APA Style
Christiansen, K., Mostafiz, R.B., Assi, A.A., Friedland, C.J., Rohli, R.V., & Dunn, C.J. (2023). Physical Impacts of 2020 Labor Day Wildfires to Oregon Highways. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202310.0578.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Christiansen, K., Robert V. Rohli and Christopher J. Dunn. 2023 "Physical Impacts of 2020 Labor Day Wildfires to Oregon Highways" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202310.0578.v1
Abstract
Wildfires can be destructive to highway infrastructure. Despite the substantial number of wildfires experienced every year, research on the physical impacts of wildfire on highways has been understudied. This research examines historical and potential future highway physical damage from wildfires. To accomplish our research objectives, we examined three major areas related to physical harm to highways and the consequences of that damage – physical characteristics, roadway impacts, and traffic impacts. These categories were subsequently broken into additional metrics, the first being physical characteristics, which includes length of highway affected and reduced average daily traffic (RADT) impacts during the event. Roadway impacts were broken into the number of trees requiring removal (those that present a danger either standing or fallen), pavement damage (burning asphalt concrete), slope/rock scaling (loose hazard rocks/vegetation), and structural damage (guardrail, signs, and delineators). Traffic impacts included the need for traffic control, road closures required, and reduced annual average daily traffic (RAADT) impacts for the year. The physical characteristics on the three highways researched during the 2020 Oregon Labor Day wildfires (Beachie Creek, Archie Creek, and Holiday Farm) indicated less than 61% of the highways were affected. The highway impacts, which included damage from hazard trees, damage to various structures – guardrail, signs, and delineators as well as bridges, slope/rock scaling damage and pavement destruction – averaged 34% for the three highways, while the three of eight arterial highway routes studied in the Oregon Cascades saw a 21% reduction in AADT. Results from this study can be used not only to assess physical damage to highways from wildfires, but as a baseline for measuring and assessing potential future wildfire highway impacts.
Engineering, Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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