FDS and Smokeview — The Complete Guide: Free Fire and Smoke Simulation in Buildings

FDS (Fire Dynamics Simulator) is a CFD solver built specifically for fires and developed at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). It computes hot gas flow, heat release rate, temperatures, species concentrations and visibility — from a single room to a whole building. Smokeview is the companion tool that shows the result as a 3D animation of flame, smoke and gas layers.

FDS and Smokeview

NIST

Fire and smoke movement simulation in buildings — the world standard in fire safety engineering.

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What you get

An LES model — low-speed flow solution tuned for smoke movement and thermal convection.
Fire and pyrolysis — a fire source with a given heat release rate, or flame spread over materials.
Systems — smoke extract fans, sprinklers and detectors that activate during the simulation.
Design results — visibility, temperature and CO at head height over time.
Validation — extensive verification and validation guides against fire experiments.

What to know

Input is a text file, and setting up a complex case takes expertise. Cell size is chosen relative to the characteristic fire diameter, and a mesh that is too fine or too coarse changes the result. Many commercial graphical interfaces are essentially a shell around the same free engine.

Related tools

For smoke and air movement between rooms across the whole building — CONTAM. For general CFD — OpenFOAM. For advanced viewing of the results — ParaView.