On the Use of Real-Time Video to Forecast Fire Growth in Enclosures

The potential of the concept of combining video data analysis and numerical simulations for numerical fire forecasting is illustrated for the case of a burning sofa in an ISO room. The fire is monitored by means of a video camera. The temporal evolution of smoke layer height, flame height and flame width are obtained from the real-time video data analysis. The fire heat release rate, estimated from the flame height and width, serves as input for the numerical simulations. The two-zone model approach is adopted, because the calculations are very fast. This is necessary for forecasting: time scales in fire development are in the order of seconds (minutes), not hours (which are typical calculation times in CFD simulations). Data assimilation with real-time adjustments according to sudden changes in the fire development as observed, improves the predictions by the two-zone model and allows to make a forecast of the fire development and possible subsequent hazards, in terms of evolution of smoke layer height and temperature.