ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the concepts of flames, heat transfer, ignition, and flame spread; the interaction of the fire with its surroundings in a compartment; and the use of computer models. Most people have some familiarity with fire behavior because of exposure to campfires, brush fires, and trash fires, and everyone knows that heat rises. It introduces the concepts of fire dynamics. Self-heating is usually a very slow process and might eventually lead to smoldering combustion. Diffusion flames can be either laminar or turbulent. The energy content of a fuel, reported as energy per unit mass, is determined using an oxygen bomb calorimeter. The investigator who bases an origin determination on the area of lowest burning or deepest char in a fully involved compartment may be easily misled by a ventilation-generated fire pattern. So the Internet-of-things devices have unintentionally become monitors with respect to fire development.
