Review on heat release rate for fires in small retail shops

There are many retail shops in Hong Kong. Fire safety for those of small size and located in crowded shopping malls should be considered carefully. This applies also to the retail shops in terminal buildings and public transport interchanges. To answer the question "how large is a fire?" in a retail shop, the heat release rates of possible fires should be estimated. Combustibles include commodities and products stored, decoration materials, and furnishings. The heat release rates of these combustibles as appearing in the literature were used to estimate the rate of heat released by burning those materials. The likelihood of flashover in a retail shop was investigated. The effects of reducing the heat release rate by a sprinkler for a number of scenarios were also estimated.