THE FIREPROOF BUILING

From the time when the fire insurance industry first created the NFPA during 1896 until 1970 the fire safety concept that was applied to most large buildings (including high rise buildings) was to construct them to be fireproof. At the time a fireproof building was considered an inherently fire safe building. If its fireproof it cannot burn was the common belief among the fire professionals at the time. This fundamental fire safety prevailed for decades despite many deadly fires within fireproof buildings. The reason it prevailed was that the fireproof building was a profit making concept. The fireproofing regulations produced an extremely costly building. The costs for fire protection equipment and structural criteria that could be mandated by code were far greater that the costs of a practical automatic fire control system. The fire codes were predominantly written by representatives of businesses that profited from the fire regulations and from fire. The so-called fireproof building was advantageous to the fire business in two ways. First, because this construction did not significantly reduce the fire losses, each year those losses that occurred became justifications for new structural regulations to be included in the construction codes. Those businesses that had fire related products to sell would get another shot at getting new regulations into the code that would mandate the use of what they were selling. The idea was not to reduce fire; rather the game was to use past fires as the justification for new structural regulations that presumably made the fireproof building more fireproof. So the socalled fireproof building had become a bonanza for those who profited from fire. However, as I pointed out time and again during the 1960s and the 1970s,( to the discomfort of those who profited from fire) a so-called fireproof building was a building that was designed to withstand an internal fire an hour or more; often four hours. Because the building was constructed of concrete and protected steel or similar fire resistant materials (that could withstand an internal fire) the fireproof building was a building where the designers EXPECTED an internal fire. If the fire was not expected why design the building to withstand the four hour fire? The Cocoanut Grove Night Club in Boston was an example of a fireproof building. CORRECTED TO HERE

Once a business was able to get the code to mandate the use of the products it was selling the sales became a certainty. The fire inspectors nationally would not approve the construction of the building unless it was code complying So the very best and most reliable way to sell your product was to get the code makers to incorporate that device into the code. Those over many decades the cost of constructing buildings to meet the code became ever more costly. And the more entrenched the fire profiteers became the more determined they were to prevent any real reduction in the fire losses. The losses were the motivations for the sales.