Fire scene reconstruction of a furnished compartment room in a house fire

Abstract

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has been employed to reconstruct the burning of solid combustible materials of a house fire in Parkes, New South Wales, Australia. Experiment was conducted in a compartment room containing multiple combustible materials with an identified ignition source. Large scale fire development involving the spread of flame and smoke leading to the untenable condition of flashover was observed from on-site visualisations as well as comparison to calculated heat release rates. Significant transient fire events taken from experimental footages including the spread of flame on furniture such as couch and carpet were captured through the numerical model. The present simulation and experimental studies are currently being utilised as components for online fire training program for fire-fighters.