The Need for Fire-Resistant Fabrics
When it comes to accidental fires in hotels, cigarettes are by far the leading cause, and guest bedrooms usually are the site of fire origin. What’s more, research indicated that furnishings in a typical guest room—especially drapes, beds, and upholstered furniture—account for some 60% of all hotel fires.
Thirty percent of all fatal hotel fires are initially caused by the ignition of mattress and bedding materials. This correlates with an analysis by the National Fire Protection Association, which found that nearly one-third of all fire deaths in homes occur when cigarettes ignite bedding, upholstered furniture, or rubbish.
The typical hotel/motel fire death occurs during the evening. The victim is usually a smoker who has been drinking. A burning cigarette left in an ashtray falls onto a chair, a sofa, or a mattress, where it begins to smolder. Hours later, when the piece of furniture bursts into flame, the victim is sound asleep and unaware of the fire that is pumping lethal carbon monoxide gas into the room.
The big danger is “flashover,” the stage in a fire when all combustible materials within the room are heated to their ignition temperature and flame breaks out almost simultaneously over the entire surface. The temperatures in the upper layers of a room exceed 1,000°F and the hot gases from the fire, including carbon monoxide, ignite.
The multiplier on the use of fireresistant fabrics is that it will prevent ignition of itself and also keep the room and contents that use it from reaching flashover temperatures. A smoldering cigarette will not start a fire on the fabric and it will not burn. Smoke production will not be a problem so neither will its control.
However, there is no such thing as a totally fireproof room in any situation. What the fire-resistant material’s non-combustible fibers provide is fire retardancy. It is meant to serve as an adjunct to safety devices and systems installed by hotel management for fire control, not in place of them.
