Fire Behavior and Combustion Unit II Essay
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Feb 20, 2024
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Unit II Essay
Daniel McMahon
Columbia Southern University
FIR 2303 Fire Behavior and Combustion Professor Tim Whitham
April 20, 2023
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Unit II Essay
One of the problems that occurred in the fire in the scenario is the abundance of unprotected combustible materials. These materials involved in the fire can be viewed as potential energy. Potential energy as explained in Gann, R. (2014) is, “energy that is stored, waiting to be expended.” Do to the fact that heat flows from hotter to colder areas, the intense heat that this fire was producing, and the number of combustible materials that were available would make it critical to place handlines in areas above the fire prior to it advancing to other areas of the structure. Many structures are lost when fires are not stopped from advancing into vulnerable parts of the structure. Another example shown in this scenario are laminar and turbulent flows. As described in
the scenario, firefighters saw smoke banking down and pulsing at the apartment door in the hallway. This type of flow could be determined as a laminar flow of smoke. This smoke was still filling the apartment and pressure had not reached a point to cause a turbulent flow. While in the apartment of origin, they were able to see the stove and the contents that were involved in the fire. Seconds afterwards, after introducing more oxygen to the fire, the fire double in size, temperature in the room increased and simultaneously, Tower 2’s engineer described thick black smoke pushing into the atmosphere. This turbulent flow was the result of the pressure in the apartment building to a point where the smoke had nowhere else to travel. This result in the violent release of smoke out of the window. What is the difference between conduction and radiation?
At the beginning of this incident, the fire began when the unattended saucepan was left in
contact with stove that was left on. This cause a conductive heat transfer when the heat from the
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stove that was in contact with the pan causing ignition of the cooking oil inside the saucepan which is known as conduction Gann, R. (2014). After the fire began in the saucepan, flames from the cooking oil began to heat the wooden cabinets which is known as a radiative heat transfer. The radiative heat transfer is the most common way that a fire spreads Gann, R. (2014). This incident had occurrences of radiative heat transfer or thermal radiation, when the firefighters were burned in unprotected areas of their face that was not covered by the nomex hood. Conduction and radiation while similar in the fact that they transfer heat from one object to another, are shown to differ in the way the heat is transferred. Conduction is the transfer of heat between to solids by the act of physically being in contact. This process can be very dangerous as shown in the scenario, by being the contributing factor that started the fire. Whereas radiation does not need to be in direct contact with the object it is transferring heat to Gann, R. (2014).
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References
Gann, R. (2014). Principles of Fire Behavior and Combustion
(4th ed.). Jones & Bartlett
Learning. https://online.vitalsource.com/books/9781284081879 References