NECESSITY OF CARRYING OUT FULL-SCALE BURNING TESTS FOR POST-FLASHOVER RETAIL SHOP FIRES

High combustible contents are stored in small retail shops including those located in crowded shopping malls. As the number of non-accidental fires appeared to be increasing, the general public is now quite concerned about the hidden fire hazard. For assessing the consequences of a fire, the possible heat release rates should be studied experimentally. Not only that, conducting full-scale burning tests for local retail shops under flashover conditions is necessary and had been carried out recently. In this paper, the resultant heat release rates by burning those combustibles in a shop fire after flashover will be reported. Experimental data on heat release rate, oxygen concentration, temperature and radiative heat flux are presented. Whether the heat release rate can be reduced by discharging water mists will also be investigated.