Instabilities in systems associated with fire risk

Fire risk is assumed to be a systemic product. As a part of a consideration of fire risk; models may be produced which attempt to elucidate aspects of the entire system which generates that risk. Mathematical modelling of fire growth within a building is part of this. Work is in progress in order to try to identify the types of instabilities (e.g. associated with jumps, cycles and chaos) which a fire may exhibit and the pre-conditions for such instabilities. In particular the phenomenon of ‘flashover’ in compartment fires, a potentially disastrous event, is being associated with predictions of jumps using nonlinear models which have been developed.