An analysis of fire sizes, fire growth rates and times between events using data from fire investigations

London Fire Brigade's real fire library is a database of information collected from real fire incidents by specialist teams of experienced fire investigators operating in the Greater London Area. A sample of this data collected over a five-year period has been used to characterise the distributions of fire sizes, fire growth rates and times between events that occur in building fires in a form suitable for use with probabilistic risk assessment. The effect of occupancy type, ignition source, first material ignited, and first aid fire-fighting by the occupants on the form of these distributions was then examined. Incidents that produced very large losses, rapid growth rates and extended time delays were also analysed to try to determine the reasons why such extremes occur in real fires. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.