Full-Scale Burns in Urban Areas. Part I. Fire Spread Between Structures

摘要

Four residential structures were free burned and measurements made of time-dependent radiant heat fluxes, CO and CO2 gas concentrations in the basements, the flame areas of the burning structures, and the firebrands produced by the fire. The first two buildings were blasted to simulate damage from an overpressure of 1 to 1.5 psi. The blast damaged structures burned in one-third to one-half the time of undamaged structures and produced larger relative flame areas. Gas compositions were found to be extremely sensitive to location. Firebrand production varied from fire to fire. Laboratory experiments were performed with tungsten-lamp radiation source programmed to duplicate the time variation of radiant energy emitted by the burning buildings. The results indicated that a muslin sheet over a mattress exposed to the irradiance of one fire would have ignited spontaneously if within 37 ft of the burning structure. The corresponding distance for folded newspring was 29 ft, and for muslin sheet alone was 13.5 ft. (Author)