Firebrands generated from a full-scale structure burning under well-controlled laboratory conditions

Abstract

Firebrand production from a real-scale structure under well-controlled laboratory conditions was investigated. The structure was fabricated using wood studs and oriented strand board (OSB). The entire structure was placed inside the Building Research Institute's (BRI) Fire Research Wind Tunnel Facility (FRWTF) in Japan to apply a wind field of 6m/s onto the structure. As the structure burned, firebrands were collected using an array of water pans. The size and mass distributions of firebrands collected in this study were compared with sparsely available firebrand generation data from actual full-scale structure burns, individual building component tests, and historical structure fire firebrand generation studies. In this experiment, more than 90% of firebrands were less than 1g and 56% were less than 0.1g. It was found that size and mass of firebrands collected in this study were similar to the literature studies, yet differences existed as well. Different experimental conditions, as well as varied firebrand collection strategies, were believed to be responsible for the differences in firebrand size and mass measured in the present work, and those in the literature. The present study has provided much needed data on firebrand generation from structures.