Lab Experiments of Wind-Driven Flame Spread Over a Gap at the Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory (2020-2024)

The following dataset contains thermocouple (TC), heat flux gauge (HFG), infrared (IR), and GoPro Video data for wind-driven flame spread experiments through 4-6cm deep longleaf pine needle fuel beds over a fuel discontinuity (gap). The purpose of this experiment is to characterize the impact of wind speed, moisture content, and fuel break size on fire behavior. These experiments were conducted in the low-speed wind tunnel at the U.S. Forest Service Missoula Fire Sciences Laborary in Missoula, MT using 0.5 m/s and 1 m/s wind speeds. For the main body of experiments, fuel bed size (4.9 x 1.8 m) was kept constant (called "full bed tests"), while the ambient wind speed, fuel moisture, and fuel break size were varied. Fuel moisture was binned into "dry" tests, less than 9% fuel moisture content, while "wet" tests has greater than 9% moisture content. Fuel break size was varied such that for each moisture content and wind speed testing condition, there were cases where the flame crossed the gap, and cases where it extinguished. In addition to the full bed tests, patch fuel tests were conducted to see the impact of changing the bed with and length on flame spread over the gap. Fuel bed widths of 1.2 m (4.9 m, 2.4 m, 1.2 m, and 0.6 m lengths) and 0.6 m (4.9 m, 2.4 m, and 1.2 m lengths) were tested. For these tests, wind speed, moisture content, and gap size were varied in addition to bed length and width. A related, larger-scale experiment was conducted the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) in Richburg, SC. The data for the larger scale is archived under the title "Lab Experiments of Wind-Driven Flame Spread Over a Gap at the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) (2021-2022)".