Vertical air temperature profiles in a single skin glass façade with a jumping fire scenario

There are concerns on the behavior of glass façade under a big fire in tall buildings. As reported, flame ejected from a compartment fire would spread up to high levels and ignite combustibles in there. The fire source would then jump up the tall building one floor by one floor, giving a "jumping fire scenario." Real-scale experiments were carried out at a big laboratory in Southern China to confirm this identified scenario. Part of a single skin façade with double glazing of height 7.5 m was burned. A fire was set up in an adjacent compartment and the glass pane of the façade next to the chamber was taken out. Flashover in the chamber was onsetted by setting up a gasoline pool fire. Another pool of same size and amount of gasoline was put in a chamber in the upper level above the first chamber. The adjacent glass pane next to the upper chamber was not removed. Upon igniting the pool fire at the lower chamber, flame spread out from the opening to act at the glazing system. Glass pane at the upper level was broken, igniting the gasoline pool in the upper chamber and onsetting another flashover fire. Flame then spread out from that upper chamber. The process would repeat if there are combustibles stored at the upper levels. Air temperature outside the glazing above the fire chamber was measured and will be reported in this article. This scenario with fires jumping up one by one was justified from results on the measured air temperatures. This identified scenario of having fire sources jumping up in sequence along the façade is confirmed and should be investigated.