Neighborhood-Scale Fire Spread.
Neighborhood-Scale Fire Spread.
(767 K)
Rehm, R. G.; Evans, D. D.; Mell, W. E.; Hostikka, S.;
McGrattan, K. B.; Forney, G. P.; Bouldin, C.; Baker, E.
J6.7;
Fire and Forest Meteorology, 5th Symposium. Joint With
2nd International Wildland Fire Ecology and Fire
Management Congress. Proceedings. November 16-20,
2003, Orlando, FL, 2003.
Keywords:
fire spread; mathematical models; structures; fuels;
simulation; fire models
Abstract:
This paper describes development of a physics-based
mathematical and computational model to predict fire
spread among structures and natural fuels (trees, shrubs
and ground litter). This tool will be used to understand
how fires spread in a community where both structures
and natural fuels coexist, to help train fire fighters
and to quantify the benefits of mitigation actions. No
such model currently exists. There is an increasing
awareness among fire fighters, community action groups
and community planners of the need for such a model.
This neighborhood-scale model can use detailed data on
the topography, local meteorology, building layouts and
elevations, three-dimensional distributions of natural
fuels, and the material properties of both the natural
fuels and the structures. Nearly 10% of the land and
over one-third of the homes in the U.S. today belong to
the Wildland/Urban interface (WUI), and these fractions
are increasing rapidly. Fires in the WUI setting have
also been increasing rapidly, becoming a national (as
well as an international) problem. Models of the WUI
fires must include the long-duration, high-intensity
burning characteristics of structures as well as the
burning characteristics of vegetation. Over the past 25
years, the Building and Fire Research Laboratory (BFRL)
at the National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST) has been developing a physics-based mathematical
and computational model, known as the Fire Dynamics
Simulator (FDS), to predict fire spread in a structure.
This model is available free over the Web
(www.fire.nist.gov), is well regarded and is widely used
by fire protection engineers around the world. BFRL has
recently extended the model to include fire spread from
structure to structure and is now generalizing FDS to
include prediction of fire spread in both continuous and
discrete natural fuels. The current model, as well as
its generalization, is both computationally and data
intensive, requiring for any specified region,
high-resolution, three-dimensional data of the
quantities mentioned above.
