Qualitative theoretical analysis about air pressure influence upon the gas concentration of a fire plume was given, different scale n-heptane pool fires were conducted in a small and a standard compartment room in Lhasa and Hefei, respectively. The experimental results show that, in Lhasa, the average mass burning rates in the small room and the standard room both decrease, burning time increases at about 53% in small room and 45% in standard room more than in Hefei. Whereas for maximum changes of CO concentration, in the small room, in Lhasa, CO concentrations reach about twice bigger peak values at larger increase rates than in Hefei. While in the standard room, in Lhasa and Hefei, there are no significant changes for CO concentration, which agrees well with the theoretical analysis results. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.