Wildfire prevention through prophylactic treatment of high-risk landscapes using viscoelastic retardant fluids.

Polyphosphate fire retardants are a critical tactical resource for fighting fires in the wildland and in the wildland-urban interface. Yet, application of these retardants is limited to emergency suppression strategies because current formulations cannot retain fire retardants on target vegetation for extended periods of time through environmental exposure and weathering. New retardant formulations with persistent retention to target vegetation throughout the peak fire season would enable methodical, prophylactic treatment strategies of landscapes at high risk of wildfires through prolonged prevention of ignition and continual impediment to active flaming fronts. Here we develop a sprayable, environmentally benign viscoelastic fluid comprising biopolymers and colloidal silica to enhance adherence and retention of polyphosphate retardants on common wildfire-prone vegetation. These viscoelastic fluids exhibit appropriate wetting and rheological responses to enable robust retardant adherence to vegetation following spray application. Further, laboratory and pilot-scale burn studies establish that these materials drastically reduce ignition probability before and after simulated weathering events. Overall, these studies demonstrate how these materials actualize opportunities to shift the approach of retardant-based wildfire management from reactive suppression to proactive prevention at the source of ignitions.

Seasonal Impact of Phosphate-Based Fire Retardants on Soil Chemistry Following the Prophylactic Treatment of Vegetation.

A preventative treatment of fire retardants at high-risk locales can potentially stop a majority of wildfires. For example, over 80% of wildfire ignitions in California occur at high-risk locales such as adjacent to roadsides and utility infrastructure. Recently a new class of ammonium polyphosphate retardants was developed with enhanced adherence and retention on vegetation to enable prophylactic treatments of these high-risk locals to provide season-long prevention of ignitions. Here, we compare three different ammonium (poly)phosphate-based wildland retardant formulations and evaluate their resistance to weathering and analyze their seasonal impact on soil chemistry following application onto grass. Soil samples from all three treatments demonstrated no changes in soil pH and total soil carbon and nitrogen amounts. Total soil phosphorus amounts increased by ∼2-3× following early precipitation, always remaining within typical topsoil amounts, and returned to the same level as control soil before spring. Available indices of ammonium, nitrate, and phosphate levels for all groups were elevated compared to the untreated control samples, again remaining within typical topsoil ranges across all time points and rainfall amounts evaluated. Microbial activity was decreased, potentially because the addition of available nutrients from retardant application reduced the need for organic decomposition. These results demonstrate that the application of ammonium (poly)phosphate-based retardants does not alter soil chemistry beyond typical topsoil compositions and are thus suitable for use in prophylactic wildfire prevention strategies.

Scalable manufacturing of biomimetic moldable hydrogels for industrial applications.

Hydrogels are a class of soft material that is exploited in many, often completely disparate, industrial applications, on account of their unique and tunable properties. Advances in soft material design are yielding next-generation moldable hydrogels that address engineering criteria in several industrial settings such as complex viscosity modifiers, hydraulic or injection fluids, and sprayable carriers. Industrial implementation of these viscoelastic materials requires extreme volumes of material, upwards of several hundred million gallons per year. Here, we demonstrate a paradigm for the scalable fabrication of self-assembled moldable hydrogels using rationally engineered, biomimetic polymer-nanoparticle interactions. Cellulose derivatives are linked together by selective adsorption to silica nanoparticles via dynamic and multivalent interactions. We show that the self-assembly process for gel formation is easily scaled in a linear fashion from 0.5 mL to over 15 L without alteration of the mechanical properties of the resultant materials. The facile and scalable preparation of these materials leveraging self-assembly of inexpensive, renewable, and environmentally benign starting materials, coupled with the tunability of their properties, make them amenable to a range of industrial applications. In particular, we demonstrate their utility as injectable materials for pipeline maintenance and product recovery in industrial food manufacturing as well as their use as sprayable carriers for robust application of fire retardants in preventing wildland fires.