The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has named Alexander Maranghides a 2025 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal honoree for his research on protecting people and buildings from wildfires.
The award recognizes Maranghides for 25 years of work investigating wildfires in the US and creating actionable guidelines on how to save lives and property in future fires.
The medal is awarded by the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit organization that recognizes federal employees for exemplary work in making America “better, safer and stronger.”
These awards are commonly known as “Sammies” and according to NIST, are widely considered to be the public service equivalent of the Oscars. Only around 30 honorees are selected each year out of two million federal employees.
Samuel J. Heyman Service to America honorees are chosen by a selection committee composed of leaders from government, business, charitable organizations, academia, entertainment and media.
Joannie Chin, Director of NIST‘s Engineering Laboratory said: “For more than two decades, Alex has demonstrated an unmatched ability to identify the most important lessons from wildfires.
“He then uses a variety of tools to convey these lessons to state and local officials in ways that they can understand the problem and develop solutions tailored to protect their communities.”
NIST spotlighted how many important questions emerge after a wildfire destroys a community. Why did one house survive unscathed while its neighbors burned to the ground? Did emergency warnings reach people in time for them to evacuate? What caused the fire to spread?
Answering each of these questions could save lives in the next wildfire, but finding those answers is a serious undertaking.
Maranghides’ most recent investigation, the 2018 Camp Fire in California, involved interviewing hundreds of firefighters, creating detailed minute-to-minute maps of the disaster and running full-scale laboratory experiments. The final report is more than 1,000 pages long.
But Maranghides and his collaborators went further than simply describing what happened; they took the lessons they learned to people who need to hear them, condensing decades of research into practical advice.
Community outreach was a critical component of the team’s two biggest projects: Hazard Mitigation Methodology (HMM) and Evacuation and Sheltering Considerations — Assessment, Planning and Execution (ESCAPE).
Maranghides said: “Those two programs are the most important work I’ve done over my career.”
HMM contains clear guidance and instructions for how to prevent a wildfire from spreading. It includes advice such as how to prevent embers from getting in your attic and how far a woodpile should be kept from other houses.
ESCAPE is a practical guide for how to prepare for wildfire sheltering and evacuation. It describes how emergency planners can prepare lifesaving decisions ahead of time and take simple steps to prepare refuge areas as a last resort if evacuation becomes impossible.
Both programs are beginning to be implemented in communities with a high risk of fire. As wildfires increase in frequency and severity, Maranghides’ research and outreach will save lives.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology has named Alexander Maranghides a 2025 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal honoree, for his career in investigating wildfires in the US.
