Multiple fire interactions: A further investigation by burning rate data of square fire arrays

This paper presents the first effort to explore the spatial distributions of the burning rates in group fires consisting of a large number of fire points, by analyzing burn-out time data from experimental square fire arrays ranging from 3 × 3 to 15 × 15. A new concept termed fire layer is introduced and defined to characterize the spatial locations of fire points by which the complex spatial variations of burning rates, under different conditions, are analyzed and physically interpreted. Analysis shows that the fire layer burning rates vary from outer to inner in definite nonlinear modes. This indicates that the two fire interaction effects, heat feedback enhancement and air supply restriction, involve distinct spatial fluctuations in fire arrays. The spatial fluctuations of the two interaction effects are significantly affected by the two major parameters, fire spacing and fire array size. Definite spatial regions and parameter ranges for the spatial fluctuations and high competitions of the two interaction effects are clearly distinguished. It is demonstrated that the average burning rates of all fire layers involve consistent variations versus fire spacing or fire array size, especially with high comparability to the entire fire array. It is found that by varying fire spacing, the average burning rates for all fire layers vary linearly versus the fire area ratio, within the same ranges as the entire fire array, while there exist different fluctuation modes of fire layer burning rates with respect to fire array size. Furthermore, analysis shows that the burning rates of all fire layers will be significantly affected by fire merging when it occurs. Finally, a new approach is presented to simulate fire propagation among discrete fuel sources, by which the positive effect of the surrounding new fire points on the burning rates of the original ones is definitely indicated.