Developing and post-flashover fires in a full scale room.Thermal environment, toxic emissions and effects of fire-fighting tactics.

Fire-fighting training rarely takes place in severe post-flashover environments, which is the likely scenario to be encountered by the time of first suppression attack on residential fires by fire-fighters. The tests were instrumented with thermocouple arrays, heated sampling probes and online FTIR and other gas analysis equipment. The compartment was a typical room enclosure with ventilation through a corridor to the front access door and a fire load representative of a typical residential “living-room”. The fire was allowed to reach flashover and become fully developed before the involvement of the fire-fighting team. Temperatures and toxic emissions were monitored throughout the fire development and extinguishment. This research demonstrates that with appropriate planning and suitable instrumentation target fire conditions and environments can be generated and fire-fighting tactics can be objectively monitored and assessed, providing realistic training, and other useful research data at the same time.