Fire Development Stages of Fires

Fire begins instantly when four constituents of fire tetrahedron merge. In the initial stages of fire development, heat generated goes up and creates a plume of hot gas. For fire to spread away from the first material, it is necessary heat generated from the first material to spread to other neighboring fuel packages so that this kind of cycle continues and in the process fire spreads.

In open space, fire plume moves up unhindered, and atmosphere air is drawn in as fire plume moves up. Air drawn into the flame is at lower temperature than fire gases and as a result, gases above the fire are cooled. The spread of fire in an open area is chiefly due to heat energy that is transmitted from the plume to nearby fuels. The rate of at which fire spreads outside is propelled by sloping train, amount of oxygen being drain in and wind that facilitates preheating of the uncovered fuel.

The mechanism by which fire spread in a compartment or partition is multifaceted unlike for open space. In this paper, a compartment is considered as an enclosed space or room is a given building. As the term suggests, compartment fire is normally proscribed by amount of oxygen and fuel accessible. When the quantity of oxygen gas accessible is inadequate, such state is referred to as ventilation controlled. On the other hand, when quantity of fuel accessible to burn is inadequate, the fire is fuel controlled.

In recent times, there have been attempts to categorize compartment fires basing on transformation phases or stages that take place as fire expands. These fire development phases beginning from initial stage are ignition, growth, flashover, fully developed and decay. These transformational stages are aimed at illustrating the multifaceted reaction that take place as fire the It should be noted that the stages are an attempt to describe the multifaceted reaction that occurs as a fire expands in an open space when no attempts are made to contain it from spreading. The incipient stage is a contribution of many variables, a reason why we cannot easily explain the incipient, and development stages of compartment fire in general and therefore each fire calls for special evaluation so as to accurately describe it. Information concerning fire has been gathered to give an insight into fire as a lively event that heavily depends on surrounding factors for its expansion and development