Brand Lofting in Large Fire Plumes.
Brand Lofting in Large Fire Plumes.
(144 K)
Woycheese, J. P.; Pagni, P. J.
NISTIR 5904; October 1996.
National Institute of Standards and Technology. Annual
Conference on Fire Research: Book of Abstracts.
October 28-31, 1996, Gaithersburg, MD, 67-68 pp, 1996.
Sponsor:
National Institute of Standards and Technology,
Gaithersburg, MD
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Keywords:
fire research; fire science; fire plumes; urban fires;
fire spread; fire brands
Abstract:
Urban/wildland intermix conflagrations occur when dry
vegetative fuels of the wild areas combine with
structural fuels from houses to product a combustible
environment that, once ignited, easily becomes
uncontrollable. The dominant mechanism for propagation
of these fires is the copious fire brands these fuels
produce. This research is a first step in the
development of a modular model for fire growth in the
urban/wildland intermix. The goal is to predict the
area that is at risk from brand-induced fire spread
during a large conflagration. Our work expands that
performed by Tarifa, et al., substituting a more
realistic plume velocity field based on the Baum and
McCaffrey plume model for the constant plume velocity
assumed there.
Building and Fire Research Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899