Firebrand Generated from a Full-Scale Structure Burning Under Well-Controlled Laboratory Conditions

Published

December 16, 2013

Author(s)

Sayaka S. Suzuki, Adam Brown, Samuel L. Manzello, Junichi Suzuki, Yoshihiko Hayashi

Abstract

Firebrand production from a real-scale structure under well-controlled laboratory conditions was investigated. The structure was fabricated using wood studs and oriented strand board (OSB). A sofa was placed inside the structure and this sofa was ignited using a remote electric match. The door opening was sized to allow flashover to occur inside the structure in order to produce ignition. The entire structure was placed inside the Building Research Institute’s (BRI) Fire Research Wind Tunnel Facility (FRWTF) in Japan to apply a wind field of 6 m/s onto the structure. As the structure burned down, firebrands were collected using an array of water pans. The size and mass distributions of firebrands collected in this study were compared with firebrand generation data from actual full-scale structure burns, individual building component tests, and historical firebrand generation studies from structures. The methodology presented here provides a framework to study firebrand generation from burning structures under well-controlled laboratory conditions while affording the ability to capture the important nature of realistic scales critical to the firebrand production process.

Citation

Fire Safety Journal

Volume

63

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

Local Download

Keywords

WUI Fires, Firebrands

Citation

Suzuki, S. , Brown, A. , Manzello, S. , Suzuki, J. and Hayashi, Y. (2013), Firebrand Generated from a Full-Scale Structure Burning Under Well-Controlled Laboratory Conditions, Fire Safety Journal, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=913277 (Accessed October 14, 2025)