Fire-Induced Winds in the 20 October 1991 Oakland Hills Fire.
Fire-Induced Winds in the 20 October 1991 Oakland Hills
Fire.
(818 K)
Trelles, J. J.; Pagni, P. J.
International Association for Fire Safety Science. Fire
Safety Science. Proceedings. Fifth (5th) International
Symposium. March 3-7, 1997, Melbourne, Australia, Intl.
Assoc. for Fire Safety Science, Boston, MA, Hasemi, Y.,
Editor(s), 911-922 pp, 1997.
Sponsor:
National Institute of Standards and Technology,
Gaithersburg, MD
Keywords:
fire research; fire safety; fire science; wildland
fires; urban fires; fire models; mass fires; wind
effects; urban/wildland interface
Abstract:
The winds generated at 11:45 a.m. by 38 fires and at
12:00 p.m. by 259 fires for the 20 October 1991 Oakland
Fire are simulated using the Baum and McCaffrey mass
fire model. Each house is modeled as having a 50 MW heat
release rate at the time of the computation. for each
single fire, the flame tip is 15 m high, the maximum
vertical velocity is 16 m/s and the maximum radial
velocity is 2.4 m/s. At 11:45 a.m., for the mass fire
the maximum induced wind is 2.6 m/s. The maximum
vertical velocity is 14 m/s. At 12:00 p.m., the maximum
horizontal velocity is 13 m/s. The maximum vertical
velocity is 26 m/s. Results indicate that the strong
fire-induced winds at and after 12:00 p.m. contributed
to the post-noon decrease in the fire spread rate in the
ambient windward direction.
Building and Fire Research Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899