Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

The Fire Propagation test is not an instrument for measuring basic properties of a combustible material such as its calorific value, its thermal properties or its rate of decomposition under constant heating conditions. Instead, it is intended for classifying materials according to their contribution to the growth of fire, which depends in a complex manner on the material itself and on other conditions in the fire as well. Nevertheless it should be possible to interpret certain measurements that are or might have been made in the Fire Propagation test in terms of rather more basic properties, e.g. its rate of heat release in the test, and so to similar quantities measured in more general studies on fire growth in compartments. This paper describes some recent progress in developing such interpretations.