Rivers and streams provide natural barriers which prevent the spread of fires. On the other hand, ashes from vegetation pollute and decrease water quality . Moving beyond aesthetics and stormwater management, open infrastructure systems with the right design measures can potentially play a role in regions prone to wild fires.
Accessible source
One of the advantages of open infrastructure is the accessibility of the source. Whereas current methods require professional labor to fight fires, a system which provides water in arms reach allows for communities to at least suppress fire before it spreads to far.
Fire channels
Another potential feature of OSI’s is substantially expanding open channels (streams) to play a more extensive role in preventing the spread of fires. Creating safety reservoirs which then can flood the system can more quickly extinguish fires at an instance notice.
Water quality
With ash falling into water resources, it’s also important that the system has riprap points where the water can undergo filter. While not sufficient to completely cleanse the water, it can nonetheless reduce the amount of pollution before entering into more rigorous systems.
