Principles of FIRE BEHAVIOR

Before there was life there was fire. It has left its imprint on history in many ways. We need to understand the role fire has played in history, including prehistoric events as well. After all, fire has been around from the beginning. Creation may have begun with nuclear reactions, but fire was an essential consequence to the development of life. Even the ancients revered fire, as they imagined Prometheus stole it from Zeus and gave it to us mortals. Perhaps Zeus knew we would use it and abuse it, and so he punished Prometheus severely. Today, fire in the form of controlled combustion is an essential ingredi- ent of our technology. We could not easily survive without the burning of coal, gas, and oil.

For these reasons, the study of combustion for useful power is driven by market forces that drive developed world economies. In contrast, the study of uncontrolled fire is motivated by clear risks to soci- ety and by societies having the means and desire to invest in such study. Consequently, we know a lot less about fire than controlled combustion. Fire events are chronicled and recorded in proportion to the damage rendered to people and property. But the study of fire to understand and to improve humankind is limited. It is a complex area involving many disciplines, and it is a relatively primitive field compared to other technological areas. Yet, over the past 50 years, steady progress has been made in its subjects.

This book is a by-product of those studies. It is important to understand the history of fire science research to appreciate its contribution to the science. Equally important, it is essential to appreciate the forces that drive such studies. The impact on people and property due to fire from recent history and from past history is a driver for learning. This chapter will try to present some of this information. Of signif- icance today is an increasing recognition in formal academic study that fire, as a subject discipline, is important.

Today, fire is being studied at numer- ous universities around the world. The United States has two postgraduate university programs, while there are several in the United Kingdom, two in Sweden, several in Japan, and more than a dozen in China. In fact, the Chinese People’s Armed Police Academy (university) outside of Beijing has about 7000 students with most studying fire regulations, firefighting, or fire investigation. Some of their faculty translated my advanced book on fire into Chinese:

Indeed, the first edition of the current book has been translated into Korean and Japanese. Its interest has been primarily from the nonengineering communities related to firefighter and fire investigator education. Its purpose was to attempt to translate the research developments into digestible knowl- edge for these fields. It is couched in terms of descriptions of dissected aspects of fire growth. In addition, it includes formulas that allow predictive estimates for these phenomena. In short, it is designed to bring tools from research to the practitioner.

As a firefighter you need to react to fire with reason and knowledge, not just training and instinct. As a fire investigator you need to support your opinion with knowledge and analyses to within a scientific degree of certainty. In this chapter, the reader is introduced to the subject of fire with its many features. What is it? Where does it come from? How does it impact us? How did its research evolve? How can we use that knowledge? In subsequent chapters, specific aspects of fire are addressed. What is the temperature of a flame? Why does flashover occur in a room fire? How does ventilation affect the fire? We will answer these questions and more by knowledge from research and formulas that allow quantitative estimates. When this informa- tion is pieced together, you might explain what you saw in a fire or why it occurred, or you might defend what you think happened. Now let us start at the beginning.

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