Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

Fire spread behaviors of the 1976 Sakata Fire was examined by numerical simulation with a physics-based urban fire spread model. The model is capable of predicting fire spread in densely-built environment as well as evaluating suppression effect of fire fighting which was supposed to have great contribution to the reduction of damage in the Sakata Fire. Although qualitative features of the fire spread agreed well with the fire record, there were several discrepancies in the eventual burnt area. Comparison of the numerical results with and without fire fighting activity showed that fire fighting is effective especially on suppression of fire spread in the direction orthogonal to the wind.