Safety of firefighters-rescuers during training in flashover container: A numerical study

Abstract

Extinguishing of fire is a responsible and risky job that requires knowledge, skill and mental stability from the firefighter. These facts especially refer to the localization and extinguishing of enclosure fires where the occurrence of flaming attacks, such as flashover and backdraft are possible. In such conditions, lack of experience of firefighters often leads to fatal injuries. In order to reduce the injuries of firefighters during firefighting interventions, their training in flashover containers has recently begun. Practical training provides the necessary experience that is applied in real fire extinguishing interventions which implies that firefighters are exposed to high fire temperatures during training. Because of this, the paper focuses on modeling and simulation of flashover appearance in a container for firefighters' training, performed by using numerical fluid dynamics method. Using the Fire Dynamics Simulator software package, seven fire scenarios under different ventilation conditions and fire extinguishing methods were analyzed, with the aim of examining container temperatures that affect the safety of firefighters during the training. The obtained results indicate that the most acceptable scenario for firefighter training means that the container door is open for the entire duration of the training and, at the same time, it neccessary to periodically extinguish fire with a water jet, along with occasionally opening of the roof vent of the container.