Investigating causes of large scale fire whirls using numerical simulation

Large scale fire whirls of tornadic size and strength present a significant safety hazard to fire fighters, yet very little is known about their causes. Observations on fires suggest that fire shape, ambient wind direction, multiple plume interactions, and terrain may play important roles in generating the vorticity needed for these large whirls. We use computational fluid dynamics models to investigate how these factors affect large whirl formation.