Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

An experimental apparatus is specially designed for studying the law of the fire spread along surface fuels on the ground in forest. By using the apparatus, the factors such as fuel load, packing ratio, etc., can conveniently be controlled for analysing the influence of them on the fire spread. A great deal of experiments have shown that the fire spreading speed will consequently increase when the fuel load rises, and gradually increase when the packing ratio of the fuel increases . Through observing the phenomenon during experiments, the nature of how the factors influent the fire spreading speed has been discussed. Based on the concept of fire intensity, a semi -experiential estimated equation related to fuel load, packing ratio, and other parameters was set up. According to some parameter's values measured by experiments, the values of flame spreading speeds could be calculated, the calculated results are approach to the values measured during experiments.