But in the 1980's, researchers at the laboratory began developing a computer program that would model the behavior of fire in an enclosed space, using data on the type, amount and ignition temperatures of whatever flammable materials were present. Until now, fire codes and designs aimed at preventing such losses were based on the accumulated wisdom of firefighters, basic mathematical calculations and laboratory tests of materials, Dr. Nearly 75 percent of fire fatalities occur in flashovers, Dr. On average each year, 4,000 civilians die and 40,000 are injured in fires, primarily in their homes among firefighters, 80 to 90 die and 80,000 to 90,000 are injured. Structural fires cost the American economy about $128 billion annually in property damage, maintaining fire departments and insurance. The researchers have also used the program to predict the performance of ceiling sprinklers in fires and to explain why a sprinkler next to one already active fails to open in proper sequence, a phenomenon known as sprinkler skip. ![]() Gann, senior research scientist at the lab.Īs part of continuing official investigations, researchers at the laboratory have already used the computer model to reconstruct fatal fires that occurred in Washington and Brooklyn in 1998. The program is the most sophisticated and powerful of its kind, said Dr. Howard Baum, designed to simulate the behavior of fire in a building in precise three-dimensional detail, and to evaluate systems for detecting and extinguishing the fire.Ĭalled the Fire Dynamic Simulator, the program is to be posted soon for distribution on the Web site of National Institute of Standards and Technology (). This fire was hypothetical, created on a computer program that Dr. Kevin McGrattan, a mathematician with the Building and Fire Research Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md. ''Once you have flashover, you generally lose the structure and lives,'' said Dr.
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