Bentley Software Essential to Wildfire Response, Water System Saved

• 20 November 2025
• Construction Focus
• 917 Views

Careful planning and the use of sophisticated software were credited with the local water department’s successful response to a major wildfire, preventing a potential disaster and ensuring firefighters had the necessary water supply.

The fictional account, narrated by a water engineer who was awakened by a fire near his own home, emphasizes that the successful response did not begin when the fire broke out at 2 a.m., but years earlier with proactive planning.

The water department was able to remotely adjust valve settings to shift water to the needed pressure zone for the firefight. This swift action was possible because engineers had previously run detailed simulations using OpenFlows Water hydraulic modeling software from Bentley Systems.

The software allows the engineer to run the model in real time during the incident. Besides, this modeling capability enabled the water department to advise fire officials on which hydrants offered the best capacity, guiding them away from struggling hydrants on small pipes at high elevations.

Furthermore, the engineer noted that Bentley’s water solutions software helped the department implement system improvements, like adding tank storage and pipe capacity in high-risk Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) areas, faster than previously possible.

• AI
• OpenFlows
• Bentley Systems
• Wildfire