Will the second item ignite

Abstract The problems of characterizing the burning of more than a single fuel item in a room fire are considered and one specific area is explored experimentally. The first step in describing multiple item burning is to determine if, in fact, it will occur, given the assumed ignition of the first item. This question has been experimentally explored from two aspects. (i) Irradiances have been measured at various distances from burning objects, along with their mass loss rates. (ii) The ignitability of exposed objects has been determined using a bench-scale, uniform flux ignitability test. It is then suggested that whether the second item will ignite can best be determined analytically from considering these two sets of results.