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FIREBRAND IGNTION IN LARGE OUTDOOR FIRES: THE USE OF FULL-SCALE EXPERIMENTS TO GUIDE THE DEVELOPMENT OF LABORATORY STANDARD TEST METHODS

Published

Author(s)

Samuel Manzello, Sayaka Suzuki

Abstract

Wildfires that spread into communities, referred to as Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) fires, have destroyed communities throughout the world. Large outdoor fires in Japan mainly occur due to post-earthquake fires, which result in severe urban fires. Firebrand ignition of structures is a major factor in WUI and urban fire spread. Without standard laboratory test methods, it is impossible to evaluate and compare the performance of different building elements and/or vegetative fuels ability to resist firebrand ignition. Before such test standards are developed, detailed full-scale experiments that systematically evaluate individual building component vulnerabilities to ignition by firebrand showers are required. It is critical to understand full-scale assembly performance when exposed to firebrand showers since weak points in a given assembly can be investigated. In turn, this will lead to determining the necessary configuration of building component mock-ups that can be used in standard laboratory test methods. As wind is a critical component required to transport firebrand showers observed in large outdoor fires, and wind plays a major role in whether ignition is observed, full-scale experiments must be able to consider the influence of an applied wind field to understand such ignition vulnerabilities. The basis of this paper is to present a comparison of ignition results from full-scale roofing assembly experiments, to mockups using the recently developed experimental capability at National Research Institute of Fire and Disaster (NRIFD). The development of more ignition resistant structures in large outdoor fires, not only WUI fires, but urban fires in Japan, will greatly benefit fire services as it is envisioned that firefighting resources may be better used to battle such fires, since the number of structure ignitions may be reduced significantly
Proceedings Title
Interflam 2016, 14th International Conference on Fire Science and Engineering
Conference Dates
July 4-6, 2016
Conference Location
Windsor, UK

Keywords

Large Outdoor Fires, Firebrands

Citation

Manzello, S. and Suzuki, S. (2016), FIREBRAND IGNTION IN LARGE OUTDOOR FIRES: THE USE OF FULL-SCALE EXPERIMENTS TO GUIDE THE DEVELOPMENT OF LABORATORY STANDARD TEST METHODS, Interflam 2016, 14th International Conference on Fire Science and Engineering, Windsor, UK (Accessed March 29, 2024)
Created July 3, 2016, Updated April 6, 2022