Burning rate of a pool fire with downward-directed sprays

The present study investigates how water sprays affect fire intensity, the burning rate of fuel and the relationship between droplet size and degree of water penetration. Downward-directed sprays which interact with a small-scale opposed gasoline pool fire are experimentally investigated in an open environment. It is shown that the burning rate of fuel is always greater under this opposed spray-fire plume arrangement compared to the freely burning condition, i.e. without water sprays, when fire extinction does not arise. These results imply that water sprays are able to enhance an oil fire. Furthermore, very small droplets are shown to be ineffective for fire extinction by cooling because they do not reach the fuel surface through fire plumes. Therefore, within a small-scale gasoline pool fire in an open environment, the mechanism of the fire extinction by water sprays is concluded to act via the cooling of the fuel surface, which will lead to the suppression of fuel evaporation, rather than the cooling of the fire plume itself. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.