Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

The coefficient of fire-spread velocity, which depends only on the construction types in a city, has been used in studies of fire spread without considering the opening conditions of the buildings. The coefficient is unrelated to openings. However, most actual fires spread mainly through openings between one building and another. Therefore, existing studies are based only on rough estimates using a macro analysis, and more precise research is needed. This paper presents a simulation of fire spread that depends on the velocity of the fire as it spreads between adjoining buildings, considering openings as well as construction types. This simulation is more detailed and more realistic than those in previous studies. Also presented is a simulation of fire spread depending on the above-mentioned coefficient to allow a comparison between the two types of simulation. It is concluded that the simulation pertaining to openings is very close to the conditions in an actual fire and also that the distribution of construction types has a great influence on the fire spread, especially when many of the relevant buildings are wooden.