Fighting fire

with fire

MEng Final Year Project

Author: Krzysztof Piotr Wolnicki
Supervisor: Dr Guillermo Rein
Introduction
 Counter-firing is a fire-fighting technique
in which a small fire is placed at a
certain distance form a wildfire. As a
result of in-draft small fire is pulled in by
the wildfire thereby creating a fire-break,
a strip of land with no fuel preventing fire
from spreading.

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Introduction
 Counter-firing enables for fighting of large fires using relatively
small human resources;
 Water is not required and, as a result, counter-firing can be applied
almost instantly without having to wait for water to arrive.
 Small human resources, no need for water, and short fire suppression
time result in financial savings. 
 Additionally, there are claims of health benefits to the fire-fighters
who are exposed to less smoke than in the conventional attack
techniques.
 Counter-firing is not applicable in a number of fire scenarios
including forest and high-canopy fires. 
 It may but may not work depending on topography, weather, fuels
and the uniformity of the wildfire front.
 Very little is known about where to place counter-fires to make them
work effectively. As a result counter-firing is used predominantly as a
last resort. 

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Background
 There are approximately 500 deaths and 11,000 serious injuries due to
fires in the UK each year. As bad as it sounds it is only a small fraction of
the problem worldwide where estimates suggest 300,000 deaths and
millions of injuries due to fires every year.
 From the financial point of view the cost of fires is 1-2% of the GDP for the
UK as well as 14 other countries where such statistics are available.
 In the United States alone annual losses due to fires are estimated
at $200bn.
 It is estimated that approximately 1% of the Earth’s surface is burned every
year. This figure in some parts of the globe, such as Australia, reaches
2- 4%.
 Fires have a heavy ecological toll which is manifested mainly in their large
contribution to the CO2 emissions. They are also responsible for creation
of arid, leached of nutrients, landscapes and loss of wildlife.

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Objectives
 Assessment if CFD can be used in modeling of
counter-fires;
 Choice of appropriate software;
 Generation of a CFD model enabling for prediction of: 
 Fire and weather conditions suitable for counter-firing; 

 Distance at which to place counter-fires effectively.

 Evaluation of fire and weather conditions suitable for

counter-firing;
 Comparison with previous CFD work;
 Description of a proposed validation procedure providing
all the necessary data

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Parametric Studies
Literature: Sensitivity study:
 CFD  Time for measurements
 FDS5  Domain length
 2D  Domain height
 Stationary fire model  Grid
 Heat Release Rate  Wind profile
 Fuel surface temperature  Pressure correction
 No counter-fire  Mirroring

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Model

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Results
Conditions simulated: Flow behaviour observed:

 Two zones: Immediate and Far field;

 Immediate Zone always with negative in-draft;
 Far field Zone has no drop-off distance;
 Increase in in-draft as result of increase of fire intensity;
 Decrease in in-draft as result of increase in wind velocity.

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Discussion
 Validation is needed:
 Cannot be applied in fighting fires until successfully validated.

 Comparison with previous CFD work by Roxburgh et al;

 Influence of wind velocity and fire intensity;
 Magnitude of in-draft;
 Drop-off distance.

 Drop-off distance and length of the fire-line:

 2D assumption;
 Long fire-lines.

 BACK TO MODELING:
 Parabolic wind profile assumption found inadequate;
 No grid convergence.

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Conclusions
 Model generated meets the objectives;

 Investigated fire and weather conditions;

 Compared with previous CFD work;

 Needing validation before applied in practice;

 More is available on http://counterfires.weebly.com/

The end

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