Guanajuato, Gto., December 30, 2016.- Take to the field of Physics the study a common event and apparently so simple as how fire spreads in an accident, can prevent the loss of spaces, materials and especially human lives.

Dr. José Torres Arenas is convinced of this, professor of the Department of Physical Engineering at the University of Guanajuato (UG), who seeks to build models that mathematically predict the intensity of fire, its speed, direction and length in a space, considering conditions such as the wind, terrain slope and materials around it.

The researcher explained from the point of view of Physics, the spread of the fire consists in the liberation of energy due to chemical reactions in the process of combustion, the transport of energy to the fuel that is around and the subsequent ignition of this fuel.

Today we know that fire can spread in a vertical ascend (through gases and smoke), horizontal to the sides (for the products around) and descending (when the materials fall).

Likewise, we know that the heat caused is moved by convection through a fluid (liquid or gas), by conducting of a solid (metallic objects such as beams, columns, pipes, nails and wires), radiation of waves in space (same as light) and direct contact (when it reaches an object and makes it burn).

However, he said, an unexpected change in the intensity, direction or speed of fire spread, may result mortal, collecting the life of firefighters of people in charge of suffocating the fire.

In this sense, the specialist assured that parting from the Thermodynamic and the Dynamic of Fluids it is possible to know how heat transfer and how it evolves as the time moves and build models in computers that mathematically predict (algorithms and equations) in a favorable time, a better description of the accident.

"A great advantage of such equations, based completely in the laws of Physics, they can be applied in diverse scenarios making slight modifications", he commented.

This tool, finalized the professor; is currently under development in the classrooms of the University of Guanajuato, with the purpose to generate valuable information in the decision making, as to know if it is safe to send people to the accident, how many, how and where to fight it and what other tools to use.