Effects of Winds From Burning Structures on Ground-Fire Propagation at the Wildland-Urban Interface. Final Report.
Effects of Winds From Burning Structures on Ground-Fire
Propagation at the Wildland-Urban Interface. Final
Report.
(386 K)
Rehm, R. G.
NIST GCR 06-892; 33 p. April 2006.
Sponsor:
National Institute of Standards and Technology,
Gaithersburg, MD
Keywords:
urban/wildland interface; wildland fires; wind effects;
fire spread; fire models; structures; heat release rate;
experiments; fire data; plumes; scaling; fuels; ground
fires
Abstract:
The status of fire models for wildland fires is
discussed in light of the corresponding models for fires
in structures. The starting point for this discussion is
a 1997 review paper by F. Albini entitled, "An Overview
of Research on Wildland Fire." Then, estimates of the
parameters describing ground fires, structure fires and
tree fires are presented and compared. Finally, an
attempt is made to bridge the gap between these two
types of modelling efforts by suggesting a simple,
physics-based model for fire propagation at the
wildland-urban interface (WUI). A grass fire is
considered to be driven by both an ambient wind and
entrainment winds generated by burning structures.
Although modest, this model, which is based on the
conservation of energy and mass, includes several
interesting features and requires specification of
several parameters. The dependence of the solution on
the variation of some of the parameters is discussed.
Building and Fire Research Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899