Paradigm Shift in Wildfire and Large Vertical Urban Structure Management: Three-Dimensional Vision and Convective Plume Abatement

Abstract

ABSTRACT Traditional wildfire suppression and high-rise structural firefighting remain fundamentally constrained by a two-dimensional mass-impact paradigm: delivering large, compact volumes of water directly onto burning solid fuel. This operational doctrine omits the primary thermodynamic and fluid dynamic engine governing fire propagation: the buoyant convective plume. In high-intensity crown fires and vertical urban fires, severe thermal updrafts cause hydrodynamic shattering, premature flash boiling, and canopy umbrella shielding, while maintaining a low-pressure ground vortex that continuously draws fresh oxygen (thermal wind). This paper establishes a formal fluid dynamic framework for convective plume abatement via aerial and ground-based atmospheric Water Mist systems (D₃₂ ≈ 100–150 μm). By targeting the convective column windward at three-quarters of its vertical height, instantaneous flash evaporation absorbs latent heat (Δh_evap = 2260 kJ/kg), triggering hydrostatic collapse, a localized baric high, and a cold divergent downdraft. This mechanism eliminates the thermal wind chimney, creates fluid dynamic shadow wakes (the "Pebble in the Stream" model) for Search and Rescue (SAR) extraction, and enables deterministic front-splitting maneuvers into non-combustible mineral terrains.