| Author(s): |
Sayaka S. Suzuki; Samuel L. Manzello; Yoshihiko Hayashi; |
| Title: |
The Size and Mass Distribution of Firebrands collected from Ignited Building Components Exposed to Wind |
| Published: |
July 06, 2012 |
| Abstract: |
Wildfires that spread into communities, commonly referred to as Wildland-Urban Interface Fires (WUI), are a significant international problem. Post-fire damage studies have suggested for some time that firebrands are a significant cause of structure ignition in WUI fires, yet little research has been conducted to investigate firebrand production from burning vegetation and structures. To this end, firebrand production from real-scale building components under well-controlled laboratory conditions was investigated. Specifically, wall and reentrant corner assemblies were ignited and during the combustion process, firebrands were collected to determine the size/mass distribution generated from such real-scale building components under varying wind speed. Finally, the size and mass distributions of firebrands collected in this study were compared with the data from an actual full-scale structure burn to determine if simple component tests such as these can provide insights into firebrand generation data from full scale structures. The results are presented and discussed. |
| Citation: |
Proceedings of the Combustion Institute |
| Volume: |
34 |
| Pages: |
pp. 2479 - 2485 |
| Keywords: |
WUI fire; firebrand |
| Research Areas: |
Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fires |
| DOI: |
10.1016/j.proci.2012.06.061 (Note: May link to a non-U.S. Government webpage) |
| PDF version: |
 Click here to retrieve PDF version of paper (430KB) |
