Over the past few years, numerous large-scale disasters have occurred due to wildfires at the wildland-urban interface (WUI). In these fires, spread via the transport of firebrands (burning embers) plays a significant role. Several models have been developed to describe the transport of firebrands but few, if any, are available which can provide a quantitative means to generate firebrands at the source of a fire. In this regard, a new methodology is proposed here that uses a wind tunnel to experimentally quantify the generation of firebrands from WUI fuels under different ambient conditions. The setup allows for the collection of all generated solid firebrands and major downstream gaseous species concentrations. Unique firebrand yield correlations can then be generated for each tested fuel, while also accounting for the heat-release rate, providing unique validation targets for numerical simulations. Generation of firebrands from branches of two conifers at a fixed wind speed of 4 m/s are presented to demonstrate the capabilities of this new methodology. A carbon mass balance was utilized to analyze preliminary results and understand how much of the fuel mass transitions to firebrands vs. gases. These results provide a description of the mass burning process and ultimately tie firebrand production to a time-dependent heat-release rate for initialization of firebrand transport in numerical simulations. An average firebrand yield ranging from 3–4% of initial dry mass is ultimately presented for lodgepole pine and Douglas fir. Future work is required with larger fuel sizes pertaining to real wildfire scenarios; however, the presented methodology can provide valuable data needed to initialize numerical simulations of firebrand transport, necessary for reconstruction of WUI fires and to aid in the development of mitigation strategies for the prevention of future disasters.

在过去的几年中，由于荒地与城市交界处（WUI）的野火，发生了许多大规模的灾难。在这些大火中，通过火印（燃烧的余烬）的传播传播起着重要的作用。已经开发了几种模型来描述火把的运输，但是很少有（如果有的话）可以提供定量手段在火源处产生火把。在这方面，这里提出了一种新的方法，该方法使用风洞在不同的环境条件下通过实验量化WUI燃料产生的火斑。该设置允许收集所有生成的固体火警烙印和主要的下游气态物质浓度。然后，可以为每种测试燃料生成唯一的火星良率相关性，同时还要考虑放热率，为数值模拟提供独特的验证目标。提出了以4 m / s的固定风速从两个针叶树的分支生成火斑的方法，以证明这种新方法的功能。利用碳质量平衡来分析初步结果，并了解有多少燃料质量转变为火柴和天然气。这些结果提供了对大规模燃烧过程的描述，并最终将火炭的生产与时间相关的放热速率联系起来，以在数值模拟中初始化火炭的运输。最终提出了黑松和花旗松的平均火斑产量为初始干重的3-4％。需要与实际野火情景有关的更大燃料尺寸的未来工作；然而，