Design car fire size based on fire statistics and experimental data

Passenger vehicle fires present a significant fire hazard in enclosed car parks. Accordingly, this hazard is often used as a design fire scenario for the application of fire protection systems. Specific fire protection standards, like NFPA 88A:2019 and NFPA 502:2020 in the United States (US) or BS 7346-7:2013, NBN 21-208-2:2014, VDI 6019-1:2006, NEN 6098:2010 and ITB 493:2015 in Europe, provide varying requirements for car park fire protection. Car parks fire strategies, especially when smoke control systems are used, often make use of performance-based methods, in which fire growth (ie, heat release rate [HRR]) plays a fundamental role. The chosen HRR can influence the specification of car park construction and on smoke control system calculations. This article presents a review of 44 full-scale car fire tests together with Polish and British passenger car fire statistics from the last 8 years. Based on the collected data and the averaged tests, HRR values provided in this article could assist local authorities and stakeholders determine optimal fire safety design criteria for car parks.