Design car fire size based on fire statistics and experimental data
Dorota Brzezińska, Renata Ollesz, Paul Bryant
Abstract
Summary 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.