Reduced Scale Experiments on Fire Spread Involving Multiple Informal Settlement Dwellings

Fire disasters in informal settlements (also referred to as slums, shantytowns, favelas, etc.) are a major challenge worldwide, with single incident being able displace thousands of people. Numerous factors including dwelling spacing, material type, topography, weather, fuel loads, roads, and more influence fire spread. Conducting large-scale experiments quantify understand these phenomena is difficult costly. Hence, it would be beneficial if Reduced Scale Experiments (RSE) could developed study the phenomena. Previous research has demonstrated that 1/4th scale settlement (ISD) RSE can sufficiently capture behaviour dynamics within dwellings. The objective this work develop methodology for multi-dwelling ISD scaling such spread captured. This paper carries out series RSEs (a) number dwellings, (b) orientation windows, door openings, (c) cladding material, (d) wind effects, (e) distance between dwellings (f) load on Results compared previous experiments. It shown geometric suitable capturing was found contribute significantly spread, but type cladding, orientation, structural members used also affects rates. comparative results full-scale (FSEs) shows peak temperatures were comparable had similar profiles. A good correlation exists FSEs terms characteristics, time (scaled or unscaled) does not correlate well FSEs. Further needed before reliably predicting especially when involved, due complex interaction parameters difficulty flame impingement.