Mass fires are likely to follow a nuclear attack. Since it is important to the civil defense program to be able to predict rate, duration, and extent of spread of such fires, the Office of Civil Defense, U.S. Department of Defense, issued a joint contract to the Forest Service and to United Research Services, Inc., to study this field. We surveyed the literature, interviewed some 30 urban and wildland fire-control personnel, studied nearly 2,000 fires, collected 1,687 rates of spread, and determined the conditions when fires would not spread significantly and the conditions when fires would be extinguished in the absence of effective firefighting action.

[This publication is referenced in the "Synthesis of knowledge of extreme fire behavior: volume I for fire managers" (Werth et al 2011).]