Wooden buildings in Wildland-Urban Interface areas: flammability of solid woods used in wood-framed construction in Portugal

Abstract

The problem of forest fires in the wildland-urban interface raises the issue of security of wood-framed constructions. The ability of external wooden walls to resist against fire exposure constitutes the framework of the present study. The flammability of the samples of wooden planks from framing lumber of Pinus sylvestris, Apuleia leiocarpa and Pinus pinaster used in a house construction in Portugal was assessed. The influence of the wood density on time to ignition, position and time of combustion phases (drying, pyrolysis and char combustion), mass loss decay, heat release rate and total heat released was evaluated.