Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I am in third grade. I want to do a project to test which way fires spreads fastest through a forest.
I have a book about fire. It says there are four ways fire goes from tree to tree.
I wan to test which way is fastest.
I tried this last year with branches from trees but they were green. They would not light. We used safety and all with my parents. But the branches would not light.
How can i do this experiment so that it will catch fire ?

Hi.

I'm no expert on forest fires, or fire science in general, but I think I can help you some.

First, SAFETY is the MOST IMPORTANT thing here. I'm glad you had your parents help you when you tried this before. Please, do that again.

I think your topic is very interesting, and you can learn a lot. I did a bit of research on the internet and came upon this suggested experiment. I think you should study it:

http://www.usc.edu/CSSF/History/2008/Projects/J0705.pdf

What I like about this is that they set up this experiment using newspaper, not branches. I think that is a really good idea that will help you a lot. It is not so important that you use vegetation, but that you use something that burns LIKE vegetation. Newspaper is a good substitute. It's easy to get, and it burns readily.

You said you have a book that talks about the ways fire goes from tree to tree. I think if you used the information in that book, and the ideas in this web site I found, you could design a really good experiment.

Remember, keep it simple. Maybe studying just one of the ways fires spreads would be enough. Establish a hypothesis, that is before you do your experiment write down how you think it will turn out. Set up your experiment in such a way that you can measure something, and run the experiment several times so you can see if the results are consistent.

Good luck and have fun.

Thank you for your help.
Those are good ideas.

I have a friend in my class helping now and she has friend who is a firefighter.
We're even going to do the experiment at the fire station now.

I'm glad I was able to help.

Getting involved with running your experiment at the fire station is a great idea. Besides making it more safe, you're sure to get some expert information.

Have fun!!!