Alex C. Smith

Improvement of a mine fire simulation program — incorporation of smoke rollback into MFIRE 3.0

Smoke rollback is a dangerous threat to miners and firefighters in an underground mine fire. The ability to predict smoke rollback can greatly improve the chances for safe miner evacuation and mine fire control and firefighting. A modified semi-empirical equation based on large-scale experiments conducted by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) was developed to quantify smoke rollback during an underground mine fire. The equation was incorporated into a mine fire simulation program (MFIRE 3.0) to allow the user to predict the occurrence of smoke rollback and calculate the smoke rollback distance. This article describes the development of the equation and compares the experimental results with those predicted by MFIRE 3.0. The results indicate that the improved MFIRE 3.0 is capable of determining smoke rollback in a fire entry, not only to provide early warning for smoke rollback but also to verify the effectiveness of smoke rollback control efforts.