A Heat Conduction Analog Model of Urban Fire Spread.

This report describes a model of urban fire spread. The model attempts to simulate the gross features of urban fire spread by adjusting parameters in a 2-D transient heat conduction code. The requirements imposed on the model are that the spread probabilities agree with those taken from empirical data or more sophisticated models, and that the results for the simple test problems by physically plausible. The effects of a constant wind velocity have also been simulated, but the results suffer from the lack of data for adjustment of parameters. The results of this preliminary investigation are encouraging. However, justification for further development requires a direct comparison of costs and results using a more sophisticated model.