BY PAUL E. CALDERWOOD
Against the backdrop of Boston (MA) Harbor on a beautiful Saturday morning, a group of college fire safety officials, contractors, fire protection engineers, and fire safety product suppliers gathered to watch a test burn of dormitory rooms. This test was a first step in establishing a performance comparison between standard latex paint and a new generation of intumescent/refractory paint.
The group gathered to see how campus fire safety officials could make life a little safer in an environment filled with potentially unsafe activities. According to the Center for Campus Fire Safety, there have been 89 student deaths since 2000. Campus fire safety officials must find ways to protect students from the potential fire hazards presented by candles, high-intensity desk lamps, and cooking in dorm rooms.
The dorm rooms of 2007 are much different from those of 1957. Back then, the furnishings were made of natural products and had a heat release rate of about 370 kw for a cotton easy chair. Today, a dorm room’s furnishings might include foam mattresses; plastics (in PCs, TVs, and CD players); and man-made fibers with high rates of heat release such as 1990 kw for a polyurethane easy chair. The result is a hotter and faster-moving fire that generates huge quantities of black, acrid smoke that could obscure exits and drop people in the building quickly after just a few breaths.
PASSIVE AND ACTIVE FIRE PROTECTION
According to fire protection system design consulting firms, fire protection should not rely solely on active fire protection such as sprinkler systems but should also incorporate balanced fire protection appropriate for the current methods used in college housing construction. The four components of balanced fire protection include active methods such as fire suppression systems (e.g., sprinklers) and passive protection measures involving detection, containment, and education.
Fire detection devices, such as dormitory fire alarm systems, are an electronic type of passive fire protection (although some may consider such systems as dynamic protection) and must include tamperproof, well-maintained, and monitored smoke detection devices that are hard-wired. Numerous fire deaths have occurred because of nonfunctioning fire alarm systems. Fire detection systems should be designed like those used in penal institutions, which prevent occupant tampering. A number of locations still allow the use of battery-operated devices that offer no protection if the battery dies or is removed.
Tamperproofing the fire alarm system is essential. The fire alarm system must connect all individual detection devices back to a central fire alarm control panel that monitors them 24/7. In such a system, if a single alarm device stops functioning, the system generates a trouble signal and personnel are dispatched to investigate and rectify the situation.
Fire suppression systems are a must in dormitories today; there is no reason for not having them. Many states now mandate sprinkler installation in dormitories-in some cases, unfortunately, only after a fire-related death. However, detection and suppression systems are mechanical devices that do fail and can be tampered with.
Containment strategies are designed to confine a fire to one place and prevent its spread. One method involves the use of intumescent/refractory paint, developed initially for the use of airlines and the military. The paint is applied to the walls and ceilings of a room; when exposed to the heat of a fire, it forms a protective barrier between the heat source and the combustible materials it covers, slowing the rate of flame spread and the propagation of the fire.
Intumescent paints have been around for 25 years. They create an insulative char layer between the surfaces they protect and the flame front or hot gases. The most recent generation of intumescent paints also produces a barrier to infrared penetration as well and may be more effective, easier to apply, and less costly than the first-generation products that were brittle, heavy, and not water-resistant. The second-generation paints work similarly to high-quality house paint in its unburned state. Fire causes the change in the paint’s chemistry and physical properties so that it transforms into the fire-resistive state. The formulas of these proprietary paints and the mechanisms by which they work are closely guarded industrial secrets.
Containing the fire to the room of origin buys time for the students to exit the building. It retards fire growth, allowing the sprinkler system to operate and help contain the fire, and allows the fire department more time to respond and extinguish the fire.
The paint, said to be non-toxic, is applied in several coats and can be brushed, rolled, or sprayed on the surfaces. A coat approximately 10 millimeters (.010 inch) thick, roughly that of a business card, is optimal. For one particular manufacturer’s product, each gallon of paint covers roughly 110 square feet and has an Underwriters Laboratories Class A flame spread rating of 10 (on a scale of zero to 100).
Education is the next fire safety component. Schools must take a hard line on fire and life safety issues, treating the students who have come to that school to learn as adults; safety is one of the lessons. Students must understand that fire protection systems are not toys; when a fire alarm sounds, it does not mean turn up the stereo and wait in your room until someone shuts off the alarm. At some incidents, students explained to me that they waited until they smelled the smoke before they exited the building. I responded that if they waited that long, their chances of safely exiting the building were greatly reduced and they could die.
BURN TEST
In the burn test conducted at the Boston Fire Department training facility, two simulated two-person unsprinklered rooms were built and filled with items found in a typical dorm room (provided by Northeastern University): two beds, two desks, two bureaus, two wardrobes filled with clothes, TVs, PCs, cooking appliances, right down to the posters on the wall (photos 1, 2).
 1. Photos by author. |
 2. |
However, one room was painted with regular latex paint and the other with the intumescent/refractory paint. Identical small fires were ignited at the foot of one of the beds in each simulated room and allowed to burn for more than 15 minutes before each fire was extinguished (photo 3).
 3. |
The results show that at 15 minutes from ignition, the fire burned faster and hotter in the room with the latex paint (photo 3, left; photo 4) but that the room’s smoke detectors alarmed early enough so that an occupant would have had an early warning and enough time to self-escape the fire.
 4. |
The fire in the room with the intumescent paint similarly set off the smoke detector but burned more slowly and did not spread into the walls and ceiling assembly (photo 3, right; photo 5). At the demonstration, then-Boston Fire Commissioner Paul Christian said he had expected the intumescent paint to provide an additional two minutes of delay between ignition and flashover, but believed the actual delay as shown by the test was much longer.
 5. |
LESSONS LEARNED
The fire professionals present at the test burn believe that the use of intumescent/refractory paint made a significant difference in the burn rate of the two rooms. Even with the wall protection, however, it was obvious that, once the room contents were ignited, a large volume of heavy black toxic smoke would have traveled the hallways of the fire building, but the damage to the structure in which intumescent/refractory paint was used would have been much less.
The smoke detectors did their job in providing early warning. Only the addition of a sprinkler system would have made the scenario even safer.
Although intumescent/refractory paint technology needs to be investigated further-and the positive results shown by the test burn in Boston need to be replicated in further demonstrations-there are other applications in which this type of passive fire protection could be used, such as historical properties in which the addition of other forms of fire protection could be problematic; apartment buildings; and assisted living and lodging houses, where many people live and face problems similar to those found in dormitories.
For their own safety, it is exceedingly important that students undertand how fast a dormitory room will burn and the volume of smoke such a fire produces. Colleges and universities must educate their students about the dangers of fire. They signed on for an education, so give it to them!
PAUL E. CALDERWOOD is a deputy chief with the Everett (MA) Fire Department and was an assistant fire marshal for Tufts University. He is an international lecturer for fire and life safety topics and is a certified fire protection specialist and certified fire plans examiner. Calderwood is a graduate of the National Fire Academy’s Executive Fire Officer Program.
