A Water Requirements Estimation Model for Fire Suppression: A Study Based on Integrated Uncertainty Analysis

Abstract

Rescue work is one of the main objectives of firefighting. To minimize casualties and financial losses, fire service agencies consider sufficient water supply for fire suppression to be the key among the many factors affecting firefighting. The difficulty of collecting water usage data from actual fire scenes has confined the research on water allocation for firefighting in either domestic or international arena mostly to theoretical studies. Consequently, the use of firefighting water resources often follows empirical methods or related government legislation, rather than being an effective practice verified by in-depth field investigation. This study, based on fire engineering theory, employs heat release rate combined with uncertainty analysis to develop a model for estimating water requirements for firefighting. Using firefighting cases at Taoyuan County in Taiwan, R.O.C., a quantitative analysis of the field data was integrated with uncertainty analysis to evaluate the suitability and uncertainty of the proposed firefighting water supply model. The result indicates that the proposed model of firefighting water requirements can effectively reflect water demand in an actual fire incident. Among the 100 cases tested, the actual firefighting water consumptions are averaged as 44.2 metric tons whereas the mean difference between the derived water requirements and the actual amount is approximately ±15 metric tons.

Building safety and human behaviour in fire: A literature review

“…Difference between policy and actual fire safety.Point of departure or assumption in (Dutch) policyKnowledge from incident evaluations and experimentsFire growth in a building is consistent with the standard fire curve, regardless of the use of a building and the materials present in it Fire growth depends on the kind of material present in a building; for example, the combustion of synthetic materials leads to ultra-fast fire growth[43] People who are mobile can escape without assistance People's walking speed is constant, regardless of whether or not they are walking through smoke…”

“…The rate of fire growth can be determined by a formula based on exponential growth, which varies according to the fire growth coefficient of the material which is burning [42,43]. Chang and Huang [43] distinguish nine standard fire curves with different rates of fire growth.…”

“…Chang and Huang [43] distinguish nine standard fire curves with different rates of fire growth. The curve of ultra-fast fire growth would, for example, apply when synthetic materials such as polyurethane (PU) are involved.…”

Report on residential :

“…Two separate studies of local fire department performance, one from Taoyuan County in Taiwan and another from the London Fire Brigade, have drawn ties between fire crews' staffing levels and total water demand as the consequence of both response time and fire severity. Field data from Taoyuan County for cases of fire in commercial, business, hospital, and educational properties showed that the type of land use as well as response time had a significant impact on the water volume necessary for fire suppression, with the notable quantitative finding that the water supply required on-scene doubled when the fire department response increased by ten minutes (Chang 2005).…”

Review of the Use of Fire Dynamics Theory in Fire Service Activities

“…A couple of the publications reviewed deal with water usage and suppressive capacity [27][28][29] similar to the second example given in Sect. 1.1.…”