Abstract
The specifics of a forecast fire development in a single fire compartment consisting of a shopping hall characterised by a large area and a relatively low height are analysed in this paper. The fire initiated locally, and after initiation, depending on the ventilation conditions in the zone, more or less intensively spread to the neighbouring areas with or without full development. The propagation of hot exhaust plume was simulated within the environment of the FDS computer code. Three formal models differing in zone size and stacking height have been subjected to analysis. The influence of automatically activated smoke vents has been accounted for.