Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Chapter 6
Combustion, Fire, and Flammability
Combustion
Flaming and Nonflaming Combustion
Fire Initiation
Fire Spread
Fire Ventilation
Fire Termination
Two Examples of Room Fires
Flammability
Fire Consequences, Hazard, Risk, and Flashover
Chapter 7
Fire Characteristics: Gaseous Combustibles
Categorization of Flames
Premixed versus Diffusion Flames
Laminar versus Turbulent Flames
Ignition of Gases
Flammability Limits and Propagation Rates of Premixed Flames
Flammability Limits
Burning Velocity
Explosions, Deflagrations, and Detonations
Chemical Mechanisms of Combustion of Gases
Elementary Chemistry
Hydrogen Oxidation
Premixed Methane–Oxygen Flame Chemistry
Combustion of Larger Hydrocarbon Fuels
Specific Hazardous Gases
Hydrogen (H2)
Acetylene (C2H2)
Methane (CH4)
Ethylene (C2H4)
Ammonia (NH3)
Chapter 8
Fire Characteristics: Liquid Combustibles
Ignition of Liquids: Flash Point, Fire Point, and Autoignition Temperature
Burning Rates of Liquid Pools
Flame Spread Rates over Liquid Surfaces
Hazards of Liquid Fuel Fires
Chapter 9
Fire Characteristics: Solid Combustibles
Fire Stages and Metrics
Solids versus Gases and Liquids
Materials and Products
Pyrolysis
Ignition to Flaming Combustion
Ignition to Nonflaming Combustion
Char Formation and Melting
Mass Burning and Flame Spread
Combustible Solids
Cellulosic and Other Natural Materials
Synthetic Polymeric Materials
Fire Retardants
Composite Materials and Furnishings
Acid–Base Pairs
Metals
Exothermic Materials
Chapter 10
Combustion Products
Smoke Aerosols
General Nature
Soot Formation
Aerosol Mist Formation
Measurement of Aerosol Yields
Quantity of Smoke Particles Produced
Visibility through Smoke
Gaseous Combustion Products
CO2 and H2O
CO
Partially Oxidized Organic Molecules
Hydrogen Halides
HCN
Nitrogen Oxides
Other Combustion Gases
Smoke Alarms
Chapter 11
Smoke and Heat Hazards
Hazards of Smoke Exposure
Toxicity of Prominent Fire Gases
Carbon Monoxide
Carbon Dioxide
Hydrogen Cyanide
Hydrogen Chloride and Hydrogen Bromide
Nitrogen Oxides
Organic Irritants
Other Toxic Species
Oxygen Deficiency
Smoke Toxic Potency Measurement
Nonthermal Smoke Damage
Thermal Damage
The Limiting Hazard Concept
Chapter 12
Movement of Fire Gases
Structure of a Fire Plume in the Open
Fire Plume under a Ceiling
Filling of a Fire Compartment by Smoke
Smoke Flow from a Compartment with an Opening
Smoke Movement in Buildings
Chapter 13
Fire Fighting Chemicals
Categories of Fire Suppressants
Aqueous Agents
Water
Enhanced Water
Aqueous Foams
Nonaqueous Agents
Inert Gases
Active Halogenated Agents
Dry Chemical Agents
Special Considerations for Fire Extinguishment
Extinguishment of Flowing Gas Flames
Extinguishment of a Shallow Liquid Fuel Spill Fire
Extinguishment of a Deep Tank Liquid Fuel Fire
Ultrafast Extinguishment of Fires
Chapter 14
Computational Modeling of Fires
Types of Models
Users of Models
Zone Models
The Zone Approximation
The Consolidated Model of Fire and Smoke Transport Zone Model
Field Models
Characteristics of Field Models
The Fire Dynamics Simulator
Computational Modeling and the Limiting Hazard Concept
Values and Limitations of Models
Appendix A
FESHE Correlation Guide
Appendix B
Imperial and Metric Conversions
Glossary
Index
INSTRUCTOR, STUDENT, AND
TECHNOLOGY RESOURCES
Instructor Resources
Instructor’s ToolKit CD
Preparing for class is easy with the resources on this CD, including:
• PowerPoint Presentations Provides you with a powerful way to make
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slides can be modified and edited to meet your needs.
• Lesson Plans Provides you with complete, ready-to-use lesson plans that
include all of the topics covered in the text. Offered in Word documents,
the lesson plans can be modified and customized to fit your course.
• Test Bank Contains multiple-choice questions, and allows you to create
tailor-made classroom tests and quizzes quickly and easily by selecting,
editing, organizing, and printing a test along with an answer key,
including page references to the text.
• Image and Table Bank Provides you with a selection of the most important
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more images into the PowerPoint presentations, make hand outs, or
enlarge a specific image for further discussion.
Technology Resources
Timothy W. Baker
Lansing Community College
Lansing, Michigan
David A. Budde
EMS & Fire Science Technology Director
Lake Land College
Mattoon, Illinois
Melvin Byrne
Virginia Department of Fire Programs
Fairfax, Virginia
Kevin L. Hammons
IRIS Fire Investigations
Englewood, Colorado
Gary Johnson
Central Ohio Technical College
Newark, Ohio
Stephen S. Malley
Weatherford College Public
Safety Professions
Weatherford, Texas
Byron Matthews
Cheyenne Fire and Rescue
Cheyenne, Wyoming
Larry Perez, Program Director New Mexico State University at Dona Ana Las
Cruces, New Mexico
Mike Richardson
St Matthews Fire Department
Louisville, Kentucky
Christopher M. Riley
Portsmouth Fire, Rescue, and Emergency Services
Portsmouth, Virginia
John Shafer
Green Maltese
Greencastle Fire Department Greencastle, Indiana
Douglas Smith
Portland Community College
Portland, Oregon
Robert Solomon, PE
NFPA
Quincy, Massachusetts
Kenneth Staelgraeve
Macomb Community College
Clinton Township, Michigan
Peter J. Struble
Practitioner in Residence
Fire Science Program Wallingford, Connecticut
Michael Wolever
Toledo Fire and Rescue (ret.)
Bowling Green State University Bowling Green, Ohio
INTRODUCTION
How Do Chemistry and Physics Relate to Fire
Protection?
Figure I-1 Map of the Baltimore, Maryland, area destroyed by the 1904 fire [5].
Map courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin.
The chemistry of fire encompasses the chemical make-up of the items that
burn, the chemical reactions that give rise to flames and other fire products, the
chemical reactions that retard or suppress burning, and the harmful chemical
reactions of the fire products with people and property. Certain physical
principles are also important in the understanding of fire. Notably, the laws
governing momentum and energy apply. They underlie the rate of mixing of air
into the flames, the buoyant rise of the fire gases to the ceiling and the
subsequent motion under the ceiling, the escape of smoke from a burning room
into connecting compartments, and the rate at which heat is transferred from the
flames to not yet ignited material or to people trying to escape the fire.
Introduction
In 1999, the Mars Climate Orbiter miscalculated the distance to the planet’s
surface and disintegrated in the planetary atmosphere. The cause was human
error. The spacecraft was programmed with English units, but NASA used
metric units. The difference in measuring units led to the incorrect transfer of
the navigational information between the spacecraft’s manufacturer team in
Denver, Colorado, and the flight team in Pasadena, California—and the
ultimate destruction of the spacecraft. Input data for engineering calculations
can be tabulated in a variety of units. To avoid serious consequences, it is
critical that the input data, the calculation method, and the calculated values
all use a consistent set of units.
About Measurement
Measurement is the key to understanding fire phenomena and to translating that
understanding into fire safety practice. To help understand the phenomena, it is
important to ask when the fire started, how rapidly it grew, how hot it became,
and how severe the threat to the population was. The answers to all of these (and
many other) questions are rooted in an ability to quantify. The meaning of
relative terms, such as “fast moving” or “big,” varies widely depending on
people’s experiences and perceptions. To a gardener, a big fire may involve a
large pile of leaves; in contrast, to an insurance company, a big fire may be one
that destroys a house.
Given the many different languages of the world, it is not surprising that the
early cultures made up their own methods to measure objects, frequently cast in
terms of properties of the human body. (That way, you always had your
“yardstick” with you.) The units of measurement varied from region to region
and often from person to person. For example, the Chinese measured length
using the bu (about 1.67 m), the Anglo-Saxons used the ell (about 1.14 m), and
the Spaniards used the vara (about 0.86 m). As cultures expanded to the point of
geographical contiguity, and as trade among multiple cultures began to prosper,
the need for a common set of measurements grew.
The current international measurement system, also known as the metric
system, was introduced in France by Napoleon at the beginning of the 19th
century. It was refined further in the 1960s, and certain units, referred to as SI
units, were agreed upon. SI comes from the French name Système International
d’ Unités.
All industrialized countries, with the exception of the United States and to
some extent the United Kingdom, have chosen SI units to express mass, length,
time, electrical current, temperature, and other measures. Adoption of the SI
system facilitates the following:
• Quantitative communication regarding nearly everything, from the weather
to the multitudinous forms of life.
• Exchange of manufactured products among countries.
• Computations, due to the use of factors of 10 for each unit. Instead of 12
inches in 1 foot and 5280 feet in a mile, SI uses 1000 millimeters in 1
meter and 1000 meters in 1 kilometer.
In the United States, the primary users of SI units today are scientists and
engineers. In other countries, both scientists and ordinary citizens primarily use
SI units or are in the process of changing over to their use. Because the data
compiled in different engineering references are in either SI or English units, it is
important that the U.S. reader learn to convert between the two systems.1
When a quantity is measured, there is a limit to the precision of the value
that is obtained. If a length measurement is performed with an inexpensive ruler,
it may be possible to read only the nearest millimeter marking. A value might
then be reported as 147 mm, in which case the length is represented by three
significant figures. With a more meticulously marked ruler and a magnifying
glass, it would be possible to estimate the length more precisely and report the
value to four significant figures—for example, 147.3 mm. One should report a
value to the number of significant figures. Using an electronic measuring device
with a 10-digit display does not increase the number of significant figures.
Similarly, entering a number into a computer spreadsheet in which the cells are
set to display 10 digits does not increase the number of significant figures in the
value.
When estimating a calculated value, it is acceptable to speed the calculation
by using fewer than the actual number of significant figures. Thus, in estimating
the total surface area of the Earth, one might assume that the planet is a perfect
sphere with a radius of about 6000 km. The surface area is given by the formula
4πr2 (where r = the planet’s radius), and the value of π is close to 3. The
magnitude of the surface area can then be estimated at approximately
500,000,000 km2, reported to one significant figure.
Table 1-1 SI Length Units as Related to the Meter, with English Equivalents
Notice that “in.” is the abbreviation for inches. The period is included to
distinguish it from the preposition “in”; it is the only abbreviation that is
followed by a period.
Formally, SI dimensions are given in multiples of 1000 (km, m, mm, and so
on). Nevertheless, some intermediate factors of 10 (e.g., cm, dm) are widely
used.
Area is two-dimensional and, for a rectangular flat surface, is the length of
the surface times its width. In the SI system, small areas can be expressed in
square meters (m²), square centimeters (cm²), and so on. In the English system,
areas of similar size are expressed in square inches (in.2) or square feet (ft2).
Larger areas, such as tracts of land, are expressed in hectares (ha) in the metric
system; 1 hectare is 10,000 m². The English equivalent of one hectare is 2.47
acres. In fire dynamics, the cross-sectional area of a vent is used to calculate the
flow through the vent, and the area of a hot surface is used to calculate the heat
transferred to a colder object.
Volume is three-dimensional. For a rectangular space, such as a room, it is
the length times the width times the height. Volume can be expressed in cubic
meters (m³), cubic centimeters (cm³), and so on. The liter (L) is commonly used
as a unit of liquid and gas volume, and is the same as 1 cubic decimeter (dm³) or
1000 cubic centimeters (1000 cm³). One liter is equivalent to 0.264 U.S. gallon
or 1.056 quarts.
Table 1-2 SI Mass Units as Related to the Gram, with English Equivalents
The concepts of mass and weight are often confused. The mass of an object
is a fundamental property of the object, representing the quantity of matter in the
object. An object’s mass is invariant (except in a nuclear bomb explosion, when
mass changes into energy). By comparison, weight refers to the force acting on
an object because of gravity attraction and is a convenient way to measure mass
on Earth at sea level. If an object were on the moon, its weight would be only
about one-sixth of its weight on Earth, and if the same object were in an orbiting
space station; it would be nearly weightless. However, its mass would be the
same in all three cases.
Density is the mass of a substance in a unit volume. It is generally is
expressed in grams per cubic centimeter (g/cm³), kilograms per cubic meter
(kg/m³) or, in English units, pounds per cubic foot (lb/ft3). The term specific
gravity refers to the ratio of the density of a substance to that of a reference
substance. For liquids and solids, the reference substance is usually water; for
gases, the reference substance is air. Especially for gases and liquids, the
temperature and pressure must also be specified, because the densities of the
substance of interest and the reference substance depend on the temperature and
pressure (Table 1-3). The densities of most solids are less sensitive to
temperature and pressure.
Table 1-3 Densities of Selected Materials [2]
For mixtures of two or more substances, there are multiple ways of denoting
the relative prevalence of each component.
• Concentration: the mass of a component per unit volume.
• Volume fraction (gases): the ratio of the volume that a gas in the mixture
would occupy (at standard temperature and pressure) to the total volume
of the system. This is sometimes multiplied by 100 to obtain the volume
percent. Thus the volume fraction of oxygen in dry air is 0.209, and the
volume percent of oxygen in dry air is 20.9 percent. (There is more on the
composition of air in the Physical and Chemical Change chapter.)
• Mass fraction: the ratio of the mass of a component in a mixture to the
total mass of the mixture. This can also be multiplied by 100 to obtain the
mass percent. Thus, for dry air, the mass fraction of oxygen is 0.233 and
the mass percent is 23.3 percent.
Note
Historically, there has been extensive use of units like ppm (parts per
million), such as to indicate a concentration of a toxic gas in fire smoke, or
pph (parts per hundred), such as to indicate the amount of fire retardant added
to a plastic material. There is a critical ambiguity in these units: “ppm” might
refer to 1 g of material X in 1000 kg material Y or 1 cm3 of material X in
1000 L of material Y. As a result, the use of these types of units is
discouraged. The units to be used instead of ppm are µL/L for volume
fractions and mg/kg for mass fractions. These are numerically identical: 1
mg/kg = 1 ppm by mass.
Time Units
Units for time are the same in the SI system and the English system. The basic
unit is the second (s). Table 1-4 shows abbreviations for related time units.
Speed is the rate at which an object is moving, with typical metric units
being m/s or km/h. Velocity is speed in a chosen direction. Thus, if a train is
moving to the northeast at a speed of 150 km/h, its velocity in the east direction
is 106 km/h (150/√2). (An alternative wording is that the train is moving
eastward at 106 km/h.) Colloquially, when the speaker and the audience both
understand the direction of movement, the terms may be used synonymously.
Acceleration is the rate of change of speed. Typical metric units are m/s2 and
km/h.
Note
SI units named for a person are abbreviated using a capital letter. When the
unit is spelled out, it begins with a lowercase letter except when it appears at
the beginning of a sentence or in a title.
Texture: Eky Studio/ShutterStock, Inc.; Steel: © Sharpshot/Dreamstime.com
I see increasing reason to believe that the view formed some time
back as to the origin of the Makonde bush is the correct one. I have
no doubt that it is not a natural product, but the result of human
occupation. Those parts of the high country where man—as a very
slight amount of practice enables the eye to perceive at once—has not
yet penetrated with axe and hoe, are still occupied by a splendid
timber forest quite able to sustain a comparison with our mixed
forests in Germany. But wherever man has once built his hut or tilled
his field, this horrible bush springs up. Every phase of this process
may be seen in the course of a couple of hours’ walk along the main
road. From the bush to right or left, one hears the sound of the axe—
not from one spot only, but from several directions at once. A few
steps further on, we can see what is taking place. The brush has been
cut down and piled up in heaps to the height of a yard or more,
between which the trunks of the large trees stand up like the last
pillars of a magnificent ruined building. These, too, present a
melancholy spectacle: the destructive Makonde have ringed them—
cut a broad strip of bark all round to ensure their dying off—and also
piled up pyramids of brush round them. Father and son, mother and
son-in-law, are chopping away perseveringly in the background—too
busy, almost, to look round at the white stranger, who usually excites
so much interest. If you pass by the same place a week later, the piles
of brushwood have disappeared and a thick layer of ashes has taken
the place of the green forest. The large trees stretch their
smouldering trunks and branches in dumb accusation to heaven—if
they have not already fallen and been more or less reduced to ashes,
perhaps only showing as a white stripe on the dark ground.
This work of destruction is carried out by the Makonde alike on the
virgin forest and on the bush which has sprung up on sites already
cultivated and deserted. In the second case they are saved the trouble
of burning the large trees, these being entirely absent in the
secondary bush.
After burning this piece of forest ground and loosening it with the
hoe, the native sows his corn and plants his vegetables. All over the
country, he goes in for bed-culture, which requires, and, in fact,
receives, the most careful attention. Weeds are nowhere tolerated in
the south of German East Africa. The crops may fail on the plains,
where droughts are frequent, but never on the plateau with its
abundant rains and heavy dews. Its fortunate inhabitants even have
the satisfaction of seeing the proud Wayao and Wamakua working
for them as labourers, driven by hunger to serve where they were
accustomed to rule.
But the light, sandy soil is soon exhausted, and would yield no
harvest the second year if cultivated twice running. This fact has
been familiar to the native for ages; consequently he provides in
time, and, while his crop is growing, prepares the next plot with axe
and firebrand. Next year he plants this with his various crops and
lets the first piece lie fallow. For a short time it remains waste and
desolate; then nature steps in to repair the destruction wrought by
man; a thousand new growths spring out of the exhausted soil, and
even the old stumps put forth fresh shoots. Next year the new growth
is up to one’s knees, and in a few years more it is that terrible,
impenetrable bush, which maintains its position till the black
occupier of the land has made the round of all the available sites and
come back to his starting point.
The Makonde are, body and soul, so to speak, one with this bush.
According to my Yao informants, indeed, their name means nothing
else but “bush people.” Their own tradition says that they have been
settled up here for a very long time, but to my surprise they laid great
stress on an original immigration. Their old homes were in the
south-east, near Mikindani and the mouth of the Rovuma, whence
their peaceful forefathers were driven by the continual raids of the
Sakalavas from Madagascar and the warlike Shirazis[47] of the coast,
to take refuge on the almost inaccessible plateau. I have studied
African ethnology for twenty years, but the fact that changes of
population in this apparently quiet and peaceable corner of the earth
could have been occasioned by outside enterprises taking place on
the high seas, was completely new to me. It is, no doubt, however,
correct.
The charming tribal legend of the Makonde—besides informing us
of other interesting matters—explains why they have to live in the
thickest of the bush and a long way from the edge of the plateau,
instead of making their permanent homes beside the purling brooks
and springs of the low country.
“The place where the tribe originated is Mahuta, on the southern
side of the plateau towards the Rovuma, where of old time there was
nothing but thick bush. Out of this bush came a man who never
washed himself or shaved his head, and who ate and drank but little.
He went out and made a human figure from the wood of a tree
growing in the open country, which he took home to his abode in the
bush and there set it upright. In the night this image came to life and
was a woman. The man and woman went down together to the
Rovuma to wash themselves. Here the woman gave birth to a still-
born child. They left that place and passed over the high land into the
valley of the Mbemkuru, where the woman had another child, which
was also born dead. Then they returned to the high bush country of
Mahuta, where the third child was born, which lived and grew up. In
course of time, the couple had many more children, and called
themselves Wamatanda. These were the ancestral stock of the
Makonde, also called Wamakonde,[48] i.e., aborigines. Their
forefather, the man from the bush, gave his children the command to
bury their dead upright, in memory of the mother of their race who
was cut out of wood and awoke to life when standing upright. He also
warned them against settling in the valleys and near large streams,
for sickness and death dwelt there. They were to make it a rule to
have their huts at least an hour’s walk from the nearest watering-
place; then their children would thrive and escape illness.”
The explanation of the name Makonde given by my informants is
somewhat different from that contained in the above legend, which I
extract from a little book (small, but packed with information), by
Pater Adams, entitled Lindi und sein Hinterland. Otherwise, my
results agree exactly with the statements of the legend. Washing?
Hapana—there is no such thing. Why should they do so? As it is, the
supply of water scarcely suffices for cooking and drinking; other
people do not wash, so why should the Makonde distinguish himself
by such needless eccentricity? As for shaving the head, the short,
woolly crop scarcely needs it,[49] so the second ancestral precept is
likewise easy enough to follow. Beyond this, however, there is
nothing ridiculous in the ancestor’s advice. I have obtained from
various local artists a fairly large number of figures carved in wood,
ranging from fifteen to twenty-three inches in height, and
representing women belonging to the great group of the Mavia,
Makonde, and Matambwe tribes. The carving is remarkably well
done and renders the female type with great accuracy, especially the
keloid ornamentation, to be described later on. As to the object and
meaning of their works the sculptors either could or (more probably)
would tell me nothing, and I was forced to content myself with the
scanty information vouchsafed by one man, who said that the figures
were merely intended to represent the nembo—the artificial
deformations of pelele, ear-discs, and keloids. The legend recorded
by Pater Adams places these figures in a new light. They must surely
be more than mere dolls; and we may even venture to assume that
they are—though the majority of present-day Makonde are probably
unaware of the fact—representations of the tribal ancestress.
The references in the legend to the descent from Mahuta to the
Rovuma, and to a journey across the highlands into the Mbekuru
valley, undoubtedly indicate the previous history of the tribe, the
travels of the ancestral pair typifying the migrations of their
descendants. The descent to the neighbouring Rovuma valley, with
its extraordinary fertility and great abundance of game, is intelligible
at a glance—but the crossing of the Lukuledi depression, the ascent
to the Rondo Plateau and the descent to the Mbemkuru, also lie
within the bounds of probability, for all these districts have exactly
the same character as the extreme south. Now, however, comes a
point of especial interest for our bacteriological age. The primitive
Makonde did not enjoy their lives in the marshy river-valleys.
Disease raged among them, and many died. It was only after they
had returned to their original home near Mahuta, that the health
conditions of these people improved. We are very apt to think of the
African as a stupid person whose ignorance of nature is only equalled
by his fear of it, and who looks on all mishaps as caused by evil
spirits and malignant natural powers. It is much more correct to
assume in this case that the people very early learnt to distinguish
districts infested with malaria from those where it is absent.
This knowledge is crystallized in the
ancestral warning against settling in the
valleys and near the great waters, the
dwelling-places of disease and death. At the
same time, for security against the hostile
Mavia south of the Rovuma, it was enacted
that every settlement must be not less than a
certain distance from the southern edge of the
plateau. Such in fact is their mode of life at the
present day. It is not such a bad one, and
certainly they are both safer and more
comfortable than the Makua, the recent
intruders from the south, who have made USUAL METHOD OF
good their footing on the western edge of the CLOSING HUT-DOOR
plateau, extending over a fairly wide belt of
country. Neither Makua nor Makonde show in their dwellings
anything of the size and comeliness of the Yao houses in the plain,
especially at Masasi, Chingulungulu and Zuza’s. Jumbe Chauro, a
Makonde hamlet not far from Newala, on the road to Mahuta, is the
most important settlement of the tribe I have yet seen, and has fairly
spacious huts. But how slovenly is their construction compared with
the palatial residences of the elephant-hunters living in the plain.
The roofs are still more untidy than in the general run of huts during
the dry season, the walls show here and there the scanty beginnings
or the lamentable remains of the mud plastering, and the interior is a
veritable dog-kennel; dirt, dust and disorder everywhere. A few huts
only show any attempt at division into rooms, and this consists
merely of very roughly-made bamboo partitions. In one point alone
have I noticed any indication of progress—in the method of fastening
the door. Houses all over the south are secured in a simple but
ingenious manner. The door consists of a set of stout pieces of wood
or bamboo, tied with bark-string to two cross-pieces, and moving in
two grooves round one of the door-posts, so as to open inwards. If
the owner wishes to leave home, he takes two logs as thick as a man’s
upper arm and about a yard long. One of these is placed obliquely
against the middle of the door from the inside, so as to form an angle
of from 60° to 75° with the ground. He then places the second piece
horizontally across the first, pressing it downward with all his might.
It is kept in place by two strong posts planted in the ground a few
inches inside the door. This fastening is absolutely safe, but of course
cannot be applied to both doors at once, otherwise how could the
owner leave or enter his house? I have not yet succeeded in finding
out how the back door is fastened.