At a point in time when brushfires, wildfires and occasionally even arson are wiping out large swathes of land across the state I thought it would be a relevent time to post this article, written by expert Richard Patton. Many peoplehave been effected in recent months all over the west coast. This article has been slightly edited for length and format. I realize that to many individuals, anything that has not been done is something that can’t or should not be done. But it is quite common to protect a building from an internal fire for a fire rating duration of up to four hours. As a matter of fact, the fire protection community was so enamored with the idea of a fire resistant structure that they termed it a “fireproof” building. Then, for more than 70 years or so the fire officials who controlled the fire codes wrote codes to prevent fire sprinkler systems from being installed in nearly all the “Life-At-Risk” type buildings, including high rises, hospitals and even individuals houses. The idea was that if the building was “fireproof” then there was no point in installing sprinklers in them. The fact that the contents of the buildings would burn and that when the contents burned, so did the people within, apparently got lost in the shuffle, so to speak.
To build a house which is resistant to an external fire there are some ready solutions. Of course the roof must be fire resistant but this is no major problem because such roofs are already on the market.
All in all, in order to protect a house from being ignited by an external fire the following is required: The exterior walls have to be constructed from a fire resistant material. Wood trim should be non existent or at least should be painted with fire retardant paint. Shutters for the windows should be available to block radiant heat from entering and igniting the interior combustibles. If a wood deck or porch or other exposing combustible construction exists, install some sidewall sprinklers or special fog nozzles arranged to wet down the combustibles and shield the house. What also is required is to determine the probable maximum temperatures created by the exposing fires and the probable maximum time duration of the exposures. Then it will be much easier to define the fire resistance required to keep the fire out of the house. Broadly speaking, all of this should be quite simple to accomplish for a technologically advanced nation such as the United States.
In general, those who value their houses and safety should have had the knowledge to gain this safety years ago. Why has the fire protection community ignored the problem and failed to define the solutions for these many decades during which homes have burned when the forests and brush have burned? I know the answers to those questions, but I also know that the answers will not be well received.
It should be noted that fire is a hundred billion dollars per year business. Yes in the tens billions, you heard correctly. The National Fire Protection Association and Underwriters’ Laboratories are the gate keepers to the controlled market place. The International Association Of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) and the fire department plan reviewers and inspectors are the enforcers. It is virtually impossible to market a fire related product unless one pays hugely for the laboratory testing and is able to write the product into the appropriate fire code. What I would like to see is the technology to protect the home defined, but not controlled, mandated and stagnated by government. That way, within a free market where advances can be made as technology improves, the fire science could be perfected. Under the present code system, once the code is written the ability to make advances disappears because those who control the standard and thus control the market, will prevent change. In addition, those who control the codes will write them so as to bar competitors from the market.
For instance, the fire sprikler industry produced codes which essentially required large iron pipe and huge water supplies, sometimes creating costs for protection many times greater than would be needed for properly engineered systems. One reason that this happened is that by maximizing the price they believed they maximized their profits. But, more important, the mandating of pipe sizes in steel pipe up to eight inch represented a barrier to the plumbing industry, which primarily of smaller businesses. The plumbing industry was not ready to handle the large steel pipe which was actually required here. The steel pipe had a serious corrosion issue, unfortunately and was much more susceptible to earthquake damage.
RICHARD M. PATTON, FIRE PROTECTION ENGINEER
AUTHOR, THE AMERICAN HOME IS A FIRE TRAP
President of
THE CRUSADE AGAINST FIRE DEATHS, INC.
POST OFFICE BOX 196 CITRUS HEIGHTS, CA 95611 ? PHONE 916 721 7700 FAX 916 721 7738
WEB SITES: WWW.FIRECRUSADE.COM