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Vent induced Flashover

The flashover phenomenon has already been addressed in many articles. We hear it is not predictable, it
kills many firefighters etc. ... Each time the findings are broadly the same: dangerous and unpredictable.
But if there is really a problem with flashover, needless to say that the answers are not convincing: if it is
unpredictable, it's called lottery and firefighter's work should not be a lottery . However, when a reply is not
convincing, one must ask why. In this case, is the flashover really unpredictable, or are we simply unable
to foretell? Clearly, are we competent, facing a totally random phenomenon, or do we lack knowledge on
this subject?

In this article, we will clarify some points. We ultimately affirm two things: flashover, as usually defined,
does not kill firefighters and even it's not easily predictable, it is nevertheless quite easy to control.

To clearly understand we have to analyze. We collect reliable informations at several levels: videos
showing reproductions of flashover in homes, small flashover simulators and analysis of accidents. Let's
start by looking on YouTube or Dailymotion. We find a multitude of videos showing reconstructions of
fires. Some rooms (bedrooms, dining-room, living room ...) are furnished, the fire is set to one of the
elements (curtains, carpets, chair ...) and the evolution of the fire is observed. In all these videos we see
that the time elapsed between inflammation, usually very "small" (single match) and flashover is about 3 to
5 minutes, but never more.

Let's continue with the mini-simulators. Used during flashover training, they are built of wood. The fuel
used is paper, cardboard and small pieces of wood. Since the firing with a single match until flashover, it
generally takes between 5 and 8 minutes, but never more.
Knowing that we have a difference of fuel between our videos and mini-simulators, we can deduce that
the difference of speed certainly comes from the fact that in a dwelling, the fuel gives off greater heat
output than the small pieces of wood from our small simulator.

Let's continue with the analysis of some accidents.

• On February 5, 1992, flashover at the Athletic Club (Indianapolis - USA). The report states that
employees have sniffed "burning things" between 11:45 and 12:00. At 12:06, they called for help.
Around 12:23 Engine 7 was on the scene and it was only after that the accident happened.
Assuming that employees have noticed the smell of burning at 12:00, the accident was therefore
produced at least 25 minutes after the first perception of the presence of a fire.

• On 1 February 1996 two British firefighters die in a fire at a house in Blaina (Wales). The fire
envolvement of the whole floor occurs at 6:15 while the alarm was given at 5:48. Therefore, there
are 27 minutes between the discovery of fire and the accident.

• On December 22, 1999, Keokuk (Iowa). Central sends an alert to firefighters at 8:24. The report
indicates that the fire began shortly after 8:00. The accident, which claimed the lives of three
firefighters, seems to have happened at around 8:35. Assuming that the fire started around 8:15,
we have a difference of 20 minutes between the start of the fire and the accident.
It is possible to continue analyzing dozens of cases, but every time we reach the same conclusion: time
passed between fire start and accident is not in agreement with videos or mini-simulator tests. There is
really a point to clarify.

What is flashover?
The best definition that we find is given by Kennedy, complemented by NFPA 101: Life Safety Code
3.3.79 Flashover. "A stage in the development of a contained fire in which all exposed surfaces reach
ignition temperatures more or less simultaneously and fire spreads rapidly throughout the space."

Taking these definitions to a real situation: fire, properly ventilated, develops. It produces a large amount
of smoke. This smoke stratifies at the ceiling and begins to radiate down, gradually heating the pieces of
furniture, which pyrolyse. After some time, growth of fire make the smoke heat rise to so high that it ignites
virtually all items subject to its heat, and it ignites itself also. The spread of fire being then in a gas zone, it
is very fast and pieces of furniture, heated for several minutes, ignite simultaneously.
Three things are necessary for flashover: a sizeable reserve of fuel so that fire has the ability to ramp up.
We get that in existing homes. A ceiling of smoke that will help heat the pieces of furniture even at a great
distance from the seat of fire. An air supply enough to get the fire power necessary to rise the temperature
of this ceiling of smoke.

Because for the phenomenon to be triggered, there must be some thermal power. The thermal radiation
from the smoke layer (called radiative feedback) must be around 20kw/m2. And we can only achieve this
radiation with a well-ventilated fire and when fire is well ventilated, it spreads very quickly. That is what we
have on video or in our mini-simulator: the fire is well ventilated, it grows quickly, the smoke layer warms
up, the elements start to pyrolyse then everything burns. But this happens in a very short time, not like on
usual fire scenes.

Slowing the fire...

How do we slow down the spread of a fire in our chimney? Simply by closing the air supply.

We have two extreme cases: if the openings are very small, the fire will not have enough oxygene and will
go out. We will then have backdraft type conditions If the openings are large, fire will grow rapidly, and
we'll have a flashover in 4-5 minutes (in the context of a room for example). But what about between the
two?

Imagine that we can make several tests, with the same furnished room. We light the fire and we let the
door wide open. Flashover occurs in 4 min (approx). Start again by closing the door slightly. We observe
that the fire has less heat release, but it has enough to heat the smoke layer and get the 20kw/m2
radiation. We therefore reach the flashover but this time (for example) in 5 minutes. If we close the door
even more, we have the flashover in 6 minutes ... etc. But the more we close the door, the more we lower
the intensity of the fire. At some point, although the door is not completely closed, its opening will not
provide enough air to the fire. Beware: there will be enough air to let the fire "live", but its power will not be
strong enough for it to trigger the flashover. We will have a waiting situation: fire has enough ventilation to
be alive, burning pieces of furniture one after each other, it produces smoke but the fire can not ramp up
since the air supply is insufficient. It is therefore in a stable state, as the fire in our chimney.

In fact, while the fire was in its growth phase and was heading towards the "spike" of flashover, its growth
has been stopped by inadequate ventilation. The fire remains in an intermediate state. It may leave this
state in three ways:
• For lack of fuel. When it has consumed all the fuel, it turns off. We have thus explaining the case
of apartments completely charred, discovered by the owners returning from holidays. But in today
homes, with the amount of furniture we have, this may take a very long time.
• For lack of oxygen. The fire generates heat, which means also pressure (hot air occupies more
space than cold air), and we can imagine that this pressure or the falling of a burned element
closes an air intake. The fire is then extinguished through lack of oxygen. If the firefighters open at
this moment, there is risk of backdraft.
 • By providing additional oxygen. In this case, the fire will resume its cycle and will certainly evolve
until flashover in one or several steps as we'll see later in our examples.

The third case produces what we call a ventilation induced flashover, that is to say a flashover which was
produced not by sufficient ventilation from the start, but by changes in ventilation, insufficient at beginning
and which has become sufficient thereafter.

Who changes the fire ventilation?

But how can this ventilation change? There are two solutions: One is windows breaking by themselves.
Studies (Fang and Breese in 1980 [2] and Skelly 1990 [3]) showed that the breaking of windows could
only come from the temperature difference between inside and outside. Nowadays double-glazed
windows will almost never break this way. With single-glazed windows, either the initial ventilation profile
was sufficient to produce an important heat release allowing the breaking of windows (so the flashover
would occur prior to the arrival time of the firefighters) or the profile of ventilation was inadequate and this
breaking would not happen, and thus flashover would not occur.

As this solution presents no risk for firefighters, let us consider the second alternative, much more realistic:
the change in profile of ventilation is the result of human action.

Take all the tales of accidents and reread them carefully: we find great similarities. Firefighters arrived
while the fire is bright, but generally fairly small and restricted. They are on the scene for well over 10 or
20 minutes after the firing. So if the flashover should occur, it would have already occurred. They come to
search the alleged victims, breaking the windows ostensibly to evacuate the smoke. In any case, they are
faced with a steady fire, which awaits nothing but this: an improvement of its ventilation profile. And that is
what the rescuers do. Whether it is the firefighters who enter and increase ventilation without knowing it,
or other firefighters meaning to "do well" who change this profile by breaking glasses or smashing doors.
In both cases, the result is the same: fire regains strength and after a few moments everything burns. In
best cases, it just destroys housing, at worst, it traps victims and firefighters maybe definitely.

And ultimately, firefighters do not die in flashover, they die in ventilation induced flashover and in many
cases the change of ventilation is done by firefighters themselves.

Some analysis
To see what happens, we can use computer modeling. The first one was made for the Tantad flashover
instructors course, using FDS, a NIST software.
It shows the evolution of the heat release in a residential fire. The fire (A) is located in a room where
ventilation is performed through a small window (B). This opening is enough to maintain the fire, but
insufficient to let it reach flashover. The main door (C) is closed, and also the door (E) which gives access
to room (D) where victims are supposed to be.
The fire starts (1) but its evolution stops quickly after a small tip (2). It consumed the initial oxygen reserve
(air in the room) and is now dependent on the contribution of oxygen, only supplied by the small window
(B). It will vary in intensity, but will never achieve a high level. Throughout the time zone marked 3, it
expects the firefighter arrive and enter to save the victims. But firefighter should know two things: first that
victims that are confined will still be alive for a long while, and trying to get them out will expose them to
fire and smoke. Second, that victims who are not confined are already dead: how could you imagine a
child in pajamas alive in an environment in which the firefighter can only remain a few minutes with SCBA
and turnout?
In our simulation, we open the main door (C) of the house, at point 4 on the curve of heat release. The
situation becomes worse, but not immediatly. The firefighter would have time to go to the fire and attack it.
But the simulation continues without an attack, on the assumption of the successive opening of the door
(E), searching for victims. The result is easily observable: ventilation is better, and the fire rises up to
flashover. We note also that even though the opening of the main door (C) provides a good help to the
fire, that's opening the door of the room (E at time 5), which really degrades the situation. As this room is
at a lower pressure than the rest of the structure (cold room, hot structure), when the door opens, hot air
and smoke engulfs the room (killing the victims in seconds ), while fresh air is extracted quickly and will
immediately help the fire.

The second simulation faithfully reproduces an incident that occurred March 4, 2006 at 8:15 am, on the
sector of Bully-les-Mines (North of France). The firefighters arrived on scene and were greeted by a man
and his son, only inhabitants of the house. The fire started in the bedroom (C) and they came out
unharmed. The two firefighters of the attack team enter (A) in a first room, smoky, but without heat. The
two firefighters look for fire but do not find it. They go to the other room (B) and search, without success:
the fire, under ventilated and barely visible, is behind the bed (C). At that moment the windows D and E
stay closed.

All this research phase takes place over the period 1 of the fire evolution. Retracing their steps, receiving
no heat and being in the presence of a moderately dense smoke, firefighters believe that there had been a
fire, but everything was off. They therefore chose to open the window (D at time 2) to gain visibility.
Quickly (2) the smoke layer rises, the visibility improves, but the fire thus receives air. It increases during
phase 3. The firefighters then feel increasing heat and see orange lights at door level. As they are going to
the fire (B), it grew and led to the breaking of the glass in this room (single glass of poor quality - E break
at moment 4) and leads to the flashover, perfectly visible on the heat release curve. The flame front went
into the room where were the two firefighters, who owe their survival to the fact that they were using a
nozzle at 500lpm (135GPM) with which they protected themselves.

What to do?
It is now clear that if ventilation profile is adequate, the flashover occurs before firefighters arrival.
Otherwise, it is important to keep the fire in this state of expectation. Breaking the windows, opening "to
see" are probably the worst things to do, as that is what fire is awaiting for! We must take our time
(obviously this does not mean you should be lying around ...) establish powerful hydraulic tools and then
go into without changing the state of ventilation, cooling smoke layer because it is what helps spread of
flame.
The anti-ventilation, consisting of closing the doors open, has many drawbacks. The PPV has just as
much.
As for believing that the establishment of outlets will solve all problems, it is a utopia: if the air supply is
limited, this may simply be because the smoke escaping occupies the upper part of openings and so
reduces the air intake. By creating an outlet, the ceiling of smoke rises, thereby freeing up the openings
and facilitating the entry of air. If the outlet is properly positioned and of sufficient size, the evacuation of
smoke will be fast and increased heat release will have little impact. But if the outlet is slightly too small, or
misplaced, or more typically, a zone traps smoke, then the smoke layer lifting will, and consequent
increase of air intake through the low levels will usually have devastating consequences.

It was after these tests that the group of Tantad flashover trainers started a study on tactical means. In this
research framework Captain Karla Marina Gomes Pereira, from Brasilia (Brazil) fire department stated the
principle of "discreet ventilation", a system to let the structure as much as possible in the state where it
was when the firefighters arrived. Like thieves entering discretely in a house without the knowledge of
residents, firefighters penetrate into the house without the knowledge of the fire, quietly: what is open
remains open, what is closed remains closed. If the fire is almost asleep, so let it sleep: surprise and kill it
in his half sleep.

Conclusion
The ventilation induced flashover is probably the worst enemy of firefighters, especially since they are
usually victims and cause. Competence of personnel engaged in the structure, but also the competence of
command that make the difference. Bringing staff inside without hydraulic means is a fundamental error.
And when we speak of hydraulic means, obviously we are talking about nozzles and no fire extinguisher!
The leader's role should be to monitor the structure and prevent external actions that will disrupt it.
Ordering ventilation could only come from those who found the fire and who will suffer the positive or
negative effects of this action. To ventilate, drill, break: everything has an impact on the fire at the expense
of the rescuers and victims.

1 - "A Discussion Of The Practical Use of Flashover in Fire Investigation" Patrick Kennedy, Kathryn C.
Kennedy
2 - J.B. Fang, J.N. Breese, Fire development in residential basement rooms, NBSIR 80-2120, National
Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, MD, 1980.
3 - Skelly, M. J., “An Experimental Investigation of Glass Breakage in Compartment Fires,” NIST- GCR-
90-578, (Gaithersburg, MD: National Institute of Standards and Technology, 1990).
Title Vent induced flashover
Date October 31 2010
Copyright Tantad and autor (Pierre-Louis Lamballais)
Internal Code AEN011010.1
Quality Insurance RAQ and autor

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