Contains 11 papers presented at the June 1997 symposium of the same name, held in St. Louis, MO, and sponsored by ASTM committee E5 on fire standards. The first section covers fires that develop rapidly, fires in high-rise apartment buildings, techniques for extracting additional information from ea

This paper describes scale modeling of very large scale fires as a practically useful means to investigate thoroughly their mechanisms in laboratory. A good example of very large scale fires is "fire whirls". If they are generated in urban and wildland fires, they can be dangerous for the fire fighters nearby the fire whirls and will cause extensive damage in environments. For over 20 years we have collected information and conducted experimental studies of fire whirls in mass fires using scale models. These studies indicated that a large mass fire often broke out when a large earthquake hit a city of dense population. The mass fire-related casualties and destruction were far more serious than those caused by destruction of buildings and houses by the earthquake itself. A good example is the 1938 Tokyo earthquake which caused mass fires and fire whirls claiming 38,000 deaths.

Fire plays a key role in Earth system processes. Wildfires influence the carbon cycle and the nutrient balance of our planet, and may even play a role in regulating the oxygen content of our atmosphere. The evolutionary history of plants has been intimately tied to fire and this in part explains the distribution of our ecosystems and their ability to withstand the effects of natural fires today. Fire Phenomena and the Earth System brings together the various subdisciplines within fire science to provide a synthesis of our understanding of the role of wildfire in the Earth system. The book shows how knowledge of fire phenomena and the nature of combustion of natural fuels can be used to understand modern wildfires, interpret fire events in the geological record and to understand the role of fire in a variety of Earth system processes. By bringing together chapters written by leading international researchers from a range of geological, environmental, chemical and engineering disciplines, the book will stimulate the exchange of ideas and knowledge across these subject areas. Fire Phenomena and the Earth System provides a truly interdisciplinary guide that can inform us about Earth’s past, present and beyond. Readership: Advanced students and researchers across a wide range of earth, environmental and life sciences, including biogeochemistry, paleoclimatology, atmospheric science, palaeontology and paleoecology, combustion science, ecology and forestry.

This volume addresses the state of the art in fire retardancy studies and the need for fire retardant chemicals and fire-retarded polymers, while considering the interrelationship among polymer degradation, fire retardant efficacy, fire testing and environmental concerns. The work examines the principles of polymer science with respect to fire retardancy.