Fire Safety Engineering insights in the design of window protection for bushfire flame zone

This paper presents a discussion of the issues associated with bushfire window protection in order to withstand flame zone conditions. It is found that the protecting barriers must have a significant thermal resistance or heat capacity to prevent a substantial rise in temperature of the inside face of the barrier. The presence of window behind the barrier reflects heat back to the barrier which creates a more onerous condition for the protecting barrier since little heat can be lost from the rear of the barrier. Thermal expansion of metal supporting frames is also an important issue and needs to be managed by retaining the frames rather than restraining them.