FIRE LOSS MANAGEMENT
Disaster Management
A Series by
Pant 7: EXTENSION-KINDLING
EXTENSION is the second wheel of the “fire loss slot machine.” (See Fire Engineering, April ’89, page 48.) Remember that in the area of fire loss management, “extension” means more than just “physical extension of the fire.” Under the heading of extension we’ll consider kindling, methods of extension, surface spread, physical barriers to extension, structural damage, and fire load. Each treatment will necessarily be limited because of space requirements.
KINDLING
The extension of the fire starts when initial ignition is applied to kindling. From then on the fire extends in accordance with certain very well-defined though not clearly understood laws.
Kindling, for our purposes, is a combustible material that can be decomposed and ignited by the amount of heat provided by the initial cause. A flammable gas or the vapors from flammable liquids are ready to be ignited at all times, skipping the decomposition step. Sufficient oxygen must be present for ignition of all ordinary combustibles. Ready decomposition may be due to the chemical nature of the material or its physical form.
A solid piece of four-by-four-inch wood is not ordinarily considered to be kindling. If we use a knife and carve it up into shavings, we haven’t changed its chemical nature but its physical form. We have given it a high surface-to-mass ratio. The chips of wood have a lot of surface per unit of weight. This makes them ignite more readily.
Long, continued low heating may cause chemical changes in which nonkindling materials become kindling. Heavy timbers subject to long, continued heating (as from steam pipes) finally carbonize and can ignite at low temperatures. This process has been known to take as long as 20 years.
WHY “KINDLING”?
The word “kindling” is used here to create a very important distinction and to help overcome some of the problems brought about by the ordinary type of fire prevention propaganda.
Most of the fire prevention material supplied to the public must be simple so as to communicate a direct message in a short time. Unfortunately, this is often the only “education” that the public receives. Much of the literature emphasizes “cleanliness” and “good housekeeping” as means toward preventing fires. “Clean places never burn.” “Clean up and paint up.” Only filthy buildings in slum neighborhoods have fires—people in nice, neat suburban houses can’t possibly have fires. Libraries are nice, neat, clean places —the epitome of good housekeeping—so it is very hard to convince a librarian that there can be a fire in the library.
In fact, good housekeeping is so far from being the essential feature of fire protection that often the opposite may be quite true. The good housekeeper may arrange the fire load of building contents so that the extension of fire is improved. For example, consider a school of a thousand pupils, all of whom have just eaten lunch at their desks. Under every chair there is a paper bag. wrappers from sandwiches, a milk container, and other rubbish. From the housekeeping point of view the school is a mess, but from the fire point of view this rubbish creates no problem. The housekeeping-minded management gathers up all of the rubbish into one pile and places it in the basement at the foot of the stairway. They have now concentrated the kindling. From the fire point of view there is an extreme hazard until there is a permanent arrangement that removes the accumulated kindling from the building.
Let us drop the word “rubbish” from our vocabulary and speak much more accurately of kindling. Rubbish is an economic term, not a proper fire protection term. To the fire, the Mona Lisa is simply a piece of wood paneling. The fire knows nothing of the value of the painting. A beautiful damask drape and an old rag arc equally kindling. An old wooden crate and a Chippendale desk both are kindling. Kindling may be valuable or valueless, tidy or untidy, sufficient or insufficient in quantity to propagate the fire, and in a good or poor location. The kindling may be the contents of the structure or the elements of the structure itself.
Valuable or valueless, tidy or untidy. We touched on this point before but it bears mentioning again. We tend to distinguish between rubbish and valuable material. Rubbish is considered to be unacceptable and all agree that it should not be permitted to accumulate. On the other hand, “perfectly good material” that we are “going to use” or that we are “storing for a future purpose” or that “we need” for one reason or another is not rubbish at all, and therefore, its presence is not to be questioned. But it’s kindling nevertheless, from the fire point of view. One basic rule must be followed: The kindling, regardless of value, must be removed or management must exert control so that it cannot destroy the building.
Sufficient or insufficient, good or poor location. The quantity and location of kindling present may vary from time to time. Even if an inspection discloses that kindling is not presently in a location where it is likely to accumulate, a determination should be made as to the extent of kindling that may be present at other times. If the location is unsatisfactory, sometimes all that is necessary is a change of location.
For example, the contract for an industrial plant under reconstruction provided that the roof, of combustible material, was to be replaced. It also provided that all of the roofing material was to be removed but didn’t specify when. All of the waste roofing material was piled up against the back of the building, in an ideal position to provide kindling to destroy the multimilliondollar plant. Removal of this kindling to a point 50 feet away was all that was necessary to ensure that it couldn’t ignite the building.
The commandant of a major naval command issued a bulletin deploring the number of alarms for dumpster fires and demanding a reduction. Short of posting a sentry near each one to prevent the transmission of a fire alarm, there wasn’t much the individual commanding officer could do to comply. I happened to be nearby when a box was transmitted. It was a dumpster. I noticed that the officer had to tug open the heavy steel door. It was apparent that the fire wasn’t started by a cigarette discarded by a passerby. The fire was carried out of the building in a wastebasket, emptied at the close of business, in accordance with fire safety requirements. Presto, dumpster fires became good fires.
In 1967 the McCormack Place Exhibition Hall in Chicago was totally destroyed by a fire fueled by flimsy exhibits at the Home Show. The night before, a team of inspectors swept through the hall, ordering that rubbish be removed.
Kindling should not be permitted in locations or quantities liable to extend the fire.
Contents. We must look critically at the contents of a building in terms of whether or not they are kindling.
A Fort Worth, Texas art museum set up a display depicting a rodeo. There were a number of full-size figures. To avoid soiling the museum with the usual footing found in a rodeo arena, burlap bags of shredded polyurethane were laid on the floor to be walked on by the visitors. One of the exits was blocked with hay bales. School children were taken in classes to walk through the “unique artwork.” If one of them had flicked a lighter, as apparently happened in the “Haunted House” tragedy in a New Jersey amusement park, there would likely have been a terrible disaster.
The means for controlling such potentially disastrous situations may be well beyond in-house fire loss management techniques. It may require a prefire plan that provides for immediate heavy stream attack on a fast-spreading fire or may require the installation of an adequate sprinkler system. The operative word is “adequate.” Some materials are so flammable that conventional sprinkler protection cannot suppress the fire. This becomes an overriding concern in places of public assembly. After the fatal fire in the New Jersey haunted house, loaded with polyurethane, experts testified that automatic sprinklers would not have suppressed the fire. The big question, then, is why did the public officials authorize permits for a place of assembly so hazardous that even sprinklers could not control a fire there?
EXTENSION-KINDLING
There are many types of kindling in use today that might not be controlled by sprinklers unless they’re specially designed for the hazard.
FLAMMABLE VAPORS AND GASES AS KINDLING
Normally when we think of kindling we don’t think of flammable gases or vapors. Even in arson investigations we speak of flammable liquids as “accelerants.” But vapors from flammable liquids or flammable gases fit our definition of kindling exactly, and they are the most easily ignited. A static spark can’t ignite the flimsiest bit of tissue paper, but it is sufficient to ignite flammable vapors and gases. Furthermore, flammable vapors and gases, when ignited in sufficient quantity, produce a large amount of heat very suddenly. The ignited vapors or gases are capable of enveloping a person rapidly and, therefore, often cause the most serious and painful personal injuries.
Consulting Editor Frank Brannigan is assembling material and ideas for a projected 1992 updated version of his book, Building Construction for the Fire Service. He would appreciate any suggestions from instructors, students, and readers.
Furthermore, with the cooperation of the Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute, he has prepared a five-page list of references to the hazards of trusses. A copy of this list will be sent on receipt of a stamped, self-addressed business envelope. Frank Brannigan’s address is Scientists Cliffs, Mary land 20676.
When personal injuries are counted for statistical purposes, one lost-time accident equals another lost-time accident. But in the pain and distress to the individual, few accidents are as serious as those involving ignition of flammable liquids. The loss of a finger to a power saw, for instance, is a painful accident; a finger is lost, but one can recover from this accident and go on. Serious flammable liquid accidents involve long periods of painful recovery, the terrible problem of possible medical narcotic addiction, repeated skin grafts, and intensive care. Very’ often, after a prolonged period of agony sufficient in many cases to cause serious emotional problems, the patient dies, despite the best efforts of all concerned.
In the prevention of personal injury accidents, probably no single area is more productive and more beneficial than the control of flammable liquids.
