A Stochastic Model of Fire Spread

Abstract

A stochastic model of fire spread in a building is shown. Fire spread is assumed to propagate discretely from one space to another along the network routes in a building. A calculation method is derived for the probability that specific spaces become involved in fire at an arbitrary time after ignition by using given fire spread probabilities between the spaces. Also, for the case that extinguishment is attempted, such probabilities can be gotten by this method if extinguishment probabilities are given corresponding to the scale of the fire. The method is applied to a hypothetical small house for illustrating the effectiveness of this method.