Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

The prediction of the temperature rise downwing from a long fire front advancing in the open is of interest in the study of fire spread. This report presents correlations in terms of dimensionless variables of experimental data published by Rankine on the effect of the heat output from a line burner and the wind speed on the downwind temperature rise. It is shown that, despite some variations of temperature rise with the absolute values of the wind speed and heat output, apart from those accounted for by the dimensionless variables, the correlations are on the whole very satisfactory. The experimental data are briefly discussed in the light of a theory developed by Sir Geoffrey Taylor.