Understanding Fire and Smoke Flow Through Modeling and Visualization

Published

August 1, 2003

Author(s)

Glenn P. Forney, Daniel M. Madrzykowski, Kevin B. McGrattan, L M. Sheppard

Abstract

Structural fires cost the American economy more than $100 billion annually in property damage, maintaining fire departments and insurance. A price cannot be put on the human toll: on average each year, 4,000 civilians die and 23,000 are injured in fires. Approximately 80%of fire deaths occur in homes. Trying to put out these fires costs 80 to 100 firefighters their lives and injures 80,000 to 90,000 every year.Despite fire codes and improved designs, flashover and smoke spread are still a major problems and require a complete understanding of fire behavior. Fire modeling and visualization plays an important role in both understanding and preventing smoke and fire spread. Several techniques for modeling and visualizing fire are given. Several examples are presented showing how these techniques have been used to gain a better understanding of fire behavior.

Citation

IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications

Volume

23

Issue

4

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

Local Download

Keywords

fire modeling, fire simulation, scientific visualization, simulation, visualization

Citation

Forney, G. , Madrzykowski, D. , McGrattan, K. and Sheppard, L. (2003), Understanding Fire and Smoke Flow Through Modeling and Visualization, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=861228 (Accessed October 8, 2025)