Start Of Fire Research Articles

THE EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL INTAKE AND INDUCED FRUSTRATION ON THE DISPOSITION TO START FIRES

The object of the present study was to see whether there are tendencies towards reactive arson, measured as a relation between frustration, intoxication and a disposition to start fires. One hundred individuals, 50 men and 50 women, participated. All were students and they were randomly assigned to each of five experimental groups, namely a Control Group, a Placebo Group, a Frustration Group, an Alcohol Group and an Alcohol + Frustration Group. A projective test was devised which required the participant to complete a short story where the content involved a person who had suffered humiliation and persecution and who was fingering a box of matches in his/her pocket. Results indicated that frustration increases the probability of starting fires, but, in this study, alcohol did not increase the degree of relation to fire. Results also suggest that there are strong cognitive barriers in a population of university students against fantasizing about starting fires.

Hippocampal place cells and the generation of a temporal code

Pyramidal cells in the hippocampus of freely moving rats have a spatially specific activity pattern which provides information to downstream in the phase of cell activity. We present a minimal biophysical model for the generation of the phase information from a combination of two inputs: a short duration spatial trigger and the animal's running speed. This single input is shown to determine the start and end of the spatial firing, and a transient phase code for location. Three different simple networks are shown to produce this behavior, without changes in synaptic conductance or connectivity.

The fire-safe cigarette: a burn prevention tool.

Cigarettes are the most common ignition source for fatal house fires, which cause approximately 29% of the fire deaths in the United States. A common scenario is the delayed ignition of a sofa, chair, or mattress by a lit cigarette that is forgotten or dropped by a smoker whose alertness is impaired by alcohol or medication. Cigarettes are designed to continue burning when left unattended. If they are dropped on mattresses, upholstered furniture, or other combustible material while still burning, their propensity to start fires varies depending on the cigarette design and content. The term "fire-safe" has evolved to describe cigarettes designed to have a reduced propensity for igniting mattresses and upholstered furniture. Legislative interest in the development of fire-safe smoking materials has existed for more than 50 years. Studies that showed the technical and economic feasibility of commercial production of fire-safe cigarettes were completed more than 10 years ago. Despite this, commercial production of fire-safe smoking materials has not been undertaken. The current impasse relates to the lack of consensus on a uniform test method on which to base a standard for fire-safe cigarettes. Although the fire-safe cigarette is a potentially important burn prevention tool, commercial production of such cigarettes will not occur until a standard against which fire-starting performance can be measured has been mandated by law at the state or federal level. The burn care community can play a leadership role in such legislative efforts.

Decomposition of bio-polymers of some Mediterranean plants during heating

Forest fires are a plague for all countries in the world. Many factors can induce them. The organic matter (‘fuel’) in the plant, is often responsible for the start of the fire. The bio-polymers and mainly the cellulose decompose at about 300°C with flammable evolved gas. This decomposition is first order, and the activation energy is about 180 kJ mol−1 . On the other hand, the degradation of the lignin seems more complex, but we observed on many samples, a linearly decomposition of the lignin vs. the heating rate (in the interval close to the start of the forest fire, 300 to 3000°C h−1 ). The decomposition of the plant during the heat is mainly dependent on the cellulose level. This degradation is also slightly dependent on the lignin level mainly if the lignin present in this plant is less stable.

Homeowner Perspectives on Fire Hazard, Responsibility, and Management Strategies at the Wildland-Urban Interface

Following a survey of forest homeowners in rural Michigan to assess the value of reducing the risk of damage from wildfires at the wildland-urban interface, focus group discussions were conducted with a subset of survey participants to learn about their perceptions concerning specific components of fire hazard (e.g., how fires start, fire control, fire damage), their understanding of how fire protection responsibility is allocated between government and individuals, and their under standing of and preferences for alternative fire management strategies. Focus-group data were analyzed using a framework based on behavioral economics and psychometric models of risk. Attributes associated with the fire risk help explain the relative popularity of different fire protection strategies. Because participants consider forest fires inherently uncontrollable, and the resulting damage essentially random, they are only weakly supportive of investments in firefighting infrastructure, unlikely to take all possible steps to safeguard their own properties, and resolute in their emphasis on solutions that reduce the number of fire ignitions. Their universally negative perceptions of prescribed fire may ultimately preclude its use as a risk management tool in Michigan's wildland-urban interface forests.

Practical Estimation Of Deflection And Ultimate Strength Of Fire Exposed Composite Slab

The behavior of the fire exposed steel deck comoposite floor slab is complicated, particularly the first 15 minutes of fire exposure1). The difficulty of the step by step calculus from the fire start arises in this time zone. But the required estimation is for the 1 or 2 hours after fire start, then the behavior of the steel deck composite floor slab becomes stable, and it becomes possible to calculate the stress and deflection with the aid of the section properties of the effective section (as shown in the references 1) to 5), for the upand downward bending and by setting up the stress deflection formula considered upand downward bendlng zone. In h s paper, the author develops a practical calculation method for the estimation of deflection and ultimate strength of the fire exposed steel deck composite floor slab by this means, and verifies the validity of this method by comparing to experimental results.

Chemical and thermal analysis of the biopolymers in the lavandin

Who does not know the lavender's perfume so characteristic of the Provence? The lavandin presents a better yield in essential oil that is used mainly in perfumes and cosmetics, but also in washing powders and cleaning materials. The chemical and thermal study, made on the same stalk of the lavandin, during the period from January to August, responds to two goals. First for economic appearance, we observed a higher yield of essential oil in open or wilted flowers. The automation of the flowers gathered has induced a decreasing of the essential oil in distillation, on account of the recovery of the branches without oil. Moreover, the water, mineral ashes, cellulose, lignin, holocellulose, and hemicellulose contents are computed in all the aerial parts (new and old leaves, branches). Second, the wild lavender, like other plants of the land of Provence, could be at the start of the forest fire. The inflammability risk can be observed by thermal analysis at about 300°C: presence of an exothermic peak by DTA, weight loss by TG, and determination of the maximum decomposition rate by differential thermogravimetry (DTG). In high-heating rates (about 50°C/min), the decomposition of the aerial parts of the plant increases mainly with the cellulose level.

Victims and survivors in fatal residential building fires

Of the 150 residential fire fatalities investigated by the State Coroner, Victoria, from mid-1990 to 1995, 132 resulted from 94 fires where the cause was either not deliberate or remained undetermined. Personal and behavioural characteristics of victims and survivors of these fires are examined. The 18 deaths from 15 intentional fires are described separately. Most victims evidenced known risk characteristics, such as being very old or very young, being asleep or being affected by alcohol. Victims under 5 years and over 65 were more likely to be awake and involved with the fire start. Three quarters of those asleep and half of those awake did not move from their original location - the latter were all in direct contact with the flames. In 14 of the 22 single fatality fires with survivors the victims were closer to the fire source. Survivors with risk characteristics and those who were close to the fire were likely to sustain injuries. Sample size is too small to indicate outcome differences between survivors with and without risk characteristics. Identifying individual factors that influence fire starts and outcomes for both victims and survivors is important for modelling human response as well as for targeting safety education.

Landfill Fires in Finland

On average, there were 633 sanitary landfills in operation in 1990-92 in Finland. Annually, 380 landfill fires occurred, one-quarter of which were deep fires. The total amount of waste burnt in landfill fires was estimated to be 84,000 tonnes year-1. Unsufficient covering and compacting, ash disposal and deliberate fire starting were reported to be the most typical reasons for waste ignition. The most severe deep fires lasted for 2 months. A 10 m high, 35,000 m3 large experimental bank of waste was built, instrumented and set on fire from a 7 m deep well located at the centre of the area. Wood was burnt in this ignition well to produce glowing embers, which were covered with waste and soil layers. No spread of fire was detected after covering the ignition well. However, the fire was not extinguished by covering but remained smouldering throughout the experiment. To extinguish the fire, it was necessary to dig up the smouldering fire and cool it. © 1996 ISWA

Estimating australian forest fire danger under conditions of doubled carbon dioxide concentrations

The most appropriate indices with which to quantify Australian bushfire danger are the McArthur fire danger meters. These meters use meteorological information to produce a fire danger index that is directly related to the chance of a fire starting - and to the severity of a fire once it has started. The Mark 5 forest-fire danger meter uses air temperature, relative humidity and wind speed, plus a drought factor that is calculated using daily rainfall and temperature information. Three years of daily data generated from the CSIRO four-level general circulation model, and thirty years of daily data generated from the CSIRO nine-level model were used to estimate the daily McArthur forest fire danger index for simulations corresponding to present conditions, and to those corresponding to doubled atmospheric CO2. The performance of these models with respect to fire danger was tested by comparing the fire danger index for Sale (in the Eastern part of Victoria, South-eastern Australia) calculated from analysis of daily climatological data with the modelled annual cumulative forest fire danger index for the grid point that was representative of Sale. Data from both models for all Australian grid points were also examined. Both models predict an increase in fire danger over much of Australia for their doubled CO2 scenarios. The results from the models confirm that annually averaged daily relative humidity is the single most important variable in the estimation of forest fire danger on an annual basis, yet the models tend to produce relative humidities that are slightly too low so that the fire danger is overestimated. A simple one-box model of evaporation indicates that the value of relative humidity to be expected under an altered climatic regime depends on the modelled relation between actual and potential evaporation, the present values of relative humidity and evaporation rate, as well as on the expected changes in wind speed.

A Meteorological Index of Forest Fire Hazard in Mediterranean France

The start and spread of a forest fire are strongly conditioned by the past and present meteorological situation. The interacting weather parameters determine a fire hazard which may be estimated using various indices. Among those used for the French Mediterranean region, the index 185, formulated by the author in 1985, and further successively improved (187,185/90), has proven to be very efficient.

Flame‐retarded polyurethane foam: furniture testing and specification

Upholstered furniture has been shown to present a significant fire hazard as it is relatively easy to ignite from small sources, such as cigarettes and matches, and burns rapidly producing large amounts of heat, smoke and toxic gases. Current UK legislation, controls and specifications largely concern the ignition resistance of materials and composites used in upholstered furniture. Ignition resistance is directly related to the probability of a fire starting in a given situation, but does not necessarily affect the fire severity and its consequences. The rate of fire development is governed by the rates of generation of heat, smoke and toxic gases and also by the rate of flame spread. At present there is no widely accepted way of determining these properties although tests to do so are being developed. This paper will review work on the burning behaviour of upholstered furniture, the development of combustion‐modified polyurethane foams, methods of test for ignitability and performance specifications. It will also review the methods used to determine the rates of fire development and will indicate the possibilities for the future.

Stochastic Representation of Fire Occurrence in a Wildland Fire Protection Planning Model for California

Abstract A fire occurrence module was developed for CFES-IAM Version 2, a stochastic simulation model of initial attack on wildfires in California. The module is designed to generate annual sequences of fire start times that are consistent with local fire history. A three-stage approach was employed: (1) For each day of a simulated fire season, a random draw from a Bernoulli distribution is used to determine if any fires occur; (2) if any do occur, a random draw from a geometric multiplicity distribution determines theft number; (3) ignition times for each fire are then randomly drawn from a time of day (beta or Poisson) distribution. This approach and specific distributional forms were selected after analysis of historical fire records from California's Sierra foothills and Central Valley. Fire sequences generated with the module appear to capture historical patterns with respect to diurnal distribution, interfire times, and total number of fires per year. For. Sci. 34(4):948-959.

JAMA Therapeutic!! And We'd Used It Only as Shim, Fan, Fire Starter, Seat, and Swatter

To the Editor.— In my practice, patients with low back pain have responded dramatically to the JAMA -Gibbons back device, which is constructed by rolling two issues of JAMA into a roll 7.6 cm (3 inches) in diameter and wrapping them securely with tape. To use the device (it works particularly well in an automobile seat), the buttocks are pressed back as far as possible against the seat or chair. The device is then placed crosswise between the lumbar spine and the seat and adjusted downward into the lower lumbosacral area. Leaning back against the device restores the lordotic curvature to the lumbar spine and exquisite relief results. Trials using newspapers proved quite unsatisfactory. The black from the print comes off on the clothing and the newspapers rapidly lose their resiliency. The JAMA -Gibbons device is basically hard, and firm resiliency is important. Other publications may also work, but then

Computer program for weapons noise propagation with terrain attenuation effects

Whenever we are dealing with noise propagation at distances greater than 100 m from the source, there are many factors affecting the propagation. For weapons firing, a major factor affecting propagation is the tendency of terrain to diffract and deflect the sound. A computer program has been written in Turbo PASCAL to run on an IBM‐XT computer. The program consists of digitized terrain data for a specific area along with a predictive sound propagation model for 25‐ and 7.62‐mm guns along with the TOW anti‐tank missile. The user selects locations of firing point, target point, and observer, along with number of rounds fired, and the start and end time of firing. The computer program provides the A‐weighted day‐night average sound level at the observer's location. The significant feature of NOISE.PAS is that it computes excess attenuation caused by terrain for specific sites. Additionally, NOISE.PAS takes the tedium out of doing sound calculations, which incorporate excess attenuation caused by terrain, for weapons firing.

Heat Efficiency of the Heater at the Intermittent Firing

In recent years, energy saving in greenhouse cultivation has been an objective of many researches. One of measures for energy saving is an accurate control of a room temperature to avoid excessive heating. To achieve such an accurate control with small heaters used in greenhouses, it is necessary to repeat firing and extinguishing with short time intervals.It has been said that the heat efficiency of the hot water boiler drops with the decrease of the heating load factor due to the increase of the heat loss from the boiler surface. Little is known, however, on the effect of the frequency of the intermittent firing on the heat efficiency, or on the difference of the heat efficiencies between intermittent firing and continuous firing. The objective of this study is to evaluate the heat efficiency at the intermittent firing.First of all, we evaluated the heat loss caused by the unburned carbon particles, carbonhydrates and imperfect combustion at the start and end of burning and results were compared with those at the continuous combustion. The measurements showed that the unburned carbon particles appeared only at the start of firing and the period of the appearance was less than 1 second. This means that the effect of unburned carbon particles on the heat loss is negligibly small, if the heater burns for more than 1 minute. The heat loss due to unburned carbonhydrates and imperfect combustion which was estimated from their maximum concentrations during combustion was less than 0.5% and was also negligibly small, if the heater burns at the appropriate air ratio. These results show that firing or extinguishing brings about only a negligible heat loss.After long period of the intermittent firing had been conducted, the heat efficiency at the continuous combustion dropped only 4-5% from the initial value for a type of the hot-air heater easily accumulating soot. It dropped less than 1% from the initial value for a type of the hot-air heater hardly accumulating soot. These results show that the effect of long term intermittent firing on the heat efficiency is less than the value so far estimated without measurements. One of the reasons of this phenomena may be that most part of the heat generated by the heater is exchanged on the surface of the combustion chamber where the soot accumulates hardly.

How Is This Done?

Isn't that how a man tells his emptiness How large it is, by the space in his arms? Of course it is. And other things are A form of How also, How did they build this becoming Concrete and machinery, How did we get here turning itself Into buses and automobiles, How did the fire start Transforming the city sky into shy towers that cause Their own solitude, beginning each answer With the words fire alarm.

Thermal Hazards from Propane (LPG) Fireballs

Abstract —A simple mathematical model is developed for propane fireballs, based closely on previous models for methane. The model predicts that LPG fireballs involving hundreds of tons of fuel can cause serious burns and start fires one kilometre or more away. Experimental facts are needed to improve the accuracy of such predictions.

Estimation of the Aitken particle source intensity in rural equatorial Africa

Using aircraft measurement methods, the rate of production of Aitken particles of the different types of vegetation found in the equatorial zone (forest, flooded forest and savannah) was estimated. For the savannah, the average diurnal rate in the rainy season is of the order of 4 × 10 3 p cm −2 s −1 . This increases one hundredfold in the dry season as soon as the scrub fires start. In the flooded forest zone, a region with no distinct dry season and which is practically uninhabited, emission is roughly constant throughout the year at 2 × 10 4 pcm −2 s −1 . In the other forests the production varies with the season from 3 to 7 × 10 4 pcm −2 s −1 . A preliminary estimation on the scale of the Congo shows that in the wet season 99 % of the Aitken particles have a natural origin whereas in the dry season 90% are due to human activity — mainly scrub fires. For the Congo, this corresponds to a total production of 6.5 × 10 19 particles s −1 in the wet season and 6 × 10 20 particles s −1 in the dry season.

Statistical methods in risk evaluation

This paper is concerned with the statistical methods involved in the evaluation of fire risk in an industry.The risk could be expressed in terms of two main components—the probability of fire starting and the probability of damage reaching various levels in a fire. The latter probability involves the concept of probability distribution of fire loss, the nature of which is discussed with reference to statistical and physical considerations. The values of the parameters of this distribution and the probability of fire starting will vary depending on factors such as sources of ignition, size of the property, and the presence or absence of sprinklers.It is shown how results for a group of similar properties could be modified for evaluating the risk in an individual property. For this purpose, detailed particulars of the property and processes will be required. If individual figures for financial losses are available only for large fires the parameters of the probability distribution of fire loss can be estimated by applying the statistical theory of extreme values. Basic principles of this theory and its practical uses are explained. As a project for further research it is proposed that a model based on stochastic processes should be developed for predicting the spread of fire in a building. An outline of such a model is given specifying the data required for estimating and validating the parameters of the model.