NO.
27
THE ABC'S OF THE HIGH-RISE FURNACE
As the fire department stood by helplessly on November
19, 1972 five women with their backs to the flames
leaped from the 15th floor of a New Orleans skyscraper.
Horrified bystanders screamed in anguish.
Only the day before nine residents died and 31 were in-
jured in another fire in an 11-story home for the aged in
Atlanta, Georgia. These were but the latest additions to a
growing list of terrible fires in high-rise buildings.
The news media and the American public are groping for
answers as to why the nightmare of the high-rise fire has
suddenly fallen upon us. However, the answers being
received are often obtuse, confusing, misleading and
irrelevant.
It is time that the truth of the high-rise fire be revealed.
I am preparing this report — not for the fire specialist —
but for the layman, — the confused man in the street who
knows absolutely nothing about fire protection, except
that he has a gut feeling that there is something terribly
wrong! For the man who knows there is something wrong,
but doesn't know what, or why, I will explain the ABC's
of the high-rise fire.
A IS FOR ANTIQUATED
The first thing that the layman must know about the
high-rise scene is that it is a direct result of antiquated fire
regulations. Back in the 1800's a group of insurance men
began to prepare fire regulations to help reduce the then
soaring industrial plant fire losses. The industrial and
commercial fires represented the big losses to the insurers.
Unfortuantely, as time moved on, the ideas and regula-
tions that were first intended to protect industrial
properties were applied for the purpose of protecting
human life. This is where the high-rise building fire prob-
lem first began. The old old concepts of protecting the
factory were built into the building codes, and became the
base upon which our so-called modern fire technology
for human life safety evolved.
B IS FOR THE BOX
"Don't put all your eggs in one basket", is an old adage
that accurately describes the philosophy of the early
insurers. For example, merchants were required to divide
their wares into several parts and transport only one
portion on any one ocean going vessel. In this manner
there was assurance that a single loss would not be of a
castastrophic nature.
In a similar vein, fire insurance companies often demanded
that the insured industrial plants be divided into a number
of individual fire sections by erecting firewalls. A fire in
any one section would burn up to the firewall, but then it
would be stopped. This fundamental philosophy of sub-
division of risk is nothing but an extension of the policy,
"don't put all your eggs in one basket".
This idea of subdivision of risk eventually evolved into
the compartmented fireproof building. In a high-rise
building each floor forms a fire resistive barrier to the
floor below. Theoretically, only one floor of a sky-
scraper will burn at a time.
The high-rise building of today exists as an extension
of the old insurance policy of dividing up the eggs to
li mit the size of the loss. This philosophy of fire safety
has worked for the insurer who is concerned with
property losses. Theoretically, it should also work for life
safety. At least, that is what the experts believed.
C IS FOR COMBUSTIBLE CONTENTS
An empty building has little value to anyone. When
buildings are in use usually every room or compartment
contains combustible furnishings and other combustible
contents. The fire resistive box can therefore be consid.
ered a furnace, and the combustibles brought into any
building section can be considered to be fuel in the
furnace. Most fires are combustible content fires that
burn within a fire resistive compartment.
C IS ALSO FOR COFFIN
The problem with the plan to control the size of the fire
by compartmenting the building is that people frequently
are inside of the box where fire originates. Those who are
within the building section where the fire starts are often
trapped and killed by the flames or combustion gases
before they can escape. A fire resistive section will trap
and contain heat like any good furnace. Anyone caught
within the box where fire starts may discover the box
can quickly become a COFFIN.
D IS FOR DISASTER
Normally it is expected that only one room or box in the
high-rise building will burn at a given time. However, in
order for the building to be useful it is necessary to put
doors between the rooms. Now it is a sad but true fact
that the same door that lets man in will also let fire out.
This means that a fire in one compartment of the building
can not only snuff out the lives of those who are in the
box where fire starts, but it is also quite possible for the
fire to escape and destroy lives over a large area of the
building.
Another very serious problem is that although the box
may contain the fire if the door is closed, smoke (which
is the major killer) usually can escape the box and spread
throughout the building through air ducts. When all of
this is considered it becomes clear that compartmentation
may limit the amount of property damage, but it does not
guarantee that human lives wil/be safe.
E IS FOR EXITS
Exitways are provided in buildings so that man can flee
as fire advances. The fire protection codes and standards
rely heavily on exits. Theoretically, as fire is contained
within one compartment or box as described above, the
occupants of the building must flee through the exits
provided to escape danger. However, let's look at this plan
to contain the fire in one box as people flee through
exits, in terms of the high-rise building. Because of the
great height only the elevator is a practical exitway in a
high-rise building. Also, because the occupants use ele-
vators daily they will instinctively attempt to leave by
an elevator when panic strikes.
But the fire protection community does not recognize the
elevator as an exitway. Most codes now require elevators
to be brought down to the lobby the moment fire is
discovered. Thus, when fire occurs the only practical
exiting system is taken out of service and denied to the
occupants.
There are some specific flaws in connection with elevators
that may make them hazardous under fire conditions.
But is the proper solution to take them out of use, or
should we improve the elevator to make it a reliable exiting
system?
Passage down a stairway in a high-rise building under fire
conditions is very slow and dangerous.
F IS FOR FLASHOVER
When a fire occurs in a building the high temperature
combustion gases are trapped at the ceiling. Radiant heat
(in the invisible range) is transmitted from the ceiling
downward onto other combustibles in the room that are
not yet on fire. Soon all of the combustibles throughout
the room are raised to a temperature close to autoignition
temperature. (The autoignition temperature is that tem-
perature at which a combustible will suddenly flash into
flames.)
A relatively small fire in one part of a room will heat the
ceiling so that radiation from the ceiling will raise the
temperature of all other combustibles to the near FLASH-
OVER stage. Suddenly, then, the fire will almost
instantaneously flash across the room and explode into a
giant raging inferno.
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FLASHOVER is a most startling and deadly phenomenon.
It separates fire into two distinct stages. Prior to FLASH-
OVER the fire may be a relatively insignificant fire in one
corner of a room. To one who discovers the fire there
appears to be plenty of time for action. He is quite likely
to head for an extinguisher leaving the door to the room
open (assuming that nothing of a dramatic nature will
happen until he returns to put the rile out). What he
doesn't realize as he heads down the hallway to get an
extinguisher is that in just a few seconds there is going to
be a fantastic change in the nature of the fire.
The discoverer of the fire may be on his way back to the
room with the extinguisher when suddenly flames roll
across the ceiling The ceiling will become one giant
fireball. Then there will be a flash throughout the room as
the fireball is transmitted from the ceiling to the floor.
High pressure in the room forces the superheated com-
bustion gases into the corridor. They then immediately
begin to roll down the corridor (at ceiling level) radiating
heat downward, again flashing combustibles below into
flames.
The man who moments before was proceeding in orderly
manner with an extinguisher to control the fire finds he
must suddenly turn and flee for his life.
If only he had anticipated the sudden conversion of the
small fire into a roaring holocaust he would have closed
the door to the room to trap and contain the fire, so that
others might have some chance to live. But now it is too
late to think of others. He has been exposed to panic. His
one thought is to escape with his life.
Within the next 60 to 120 seconds the fire and combusiton
gases may block exit corridors and penetrate stair shafts,
and kill all who have been caught unaware.
G IS FOR GOBBLEDYGOOK
The fire protection specialists are on the horns of a
dilemma. For more than 100 years the "experts" have
promoted a property protection oriented building struc-
tural system based on compartmentation as the correct
solution to the human fire life safety problem. Year after
year they have dug themselves into a deeper hole in their
efforts to justify a policy of regulating the structure
while ignoring the interior content fire (and the speed
with which it can kill humans). The fire "experts" are so
committed to antiquated and irrelevant regulations that
they can not answer pertinent questions regarding high-
rise fires truthfully and candidly, without revealing the
decadence behind the facade of the fireproof building.
You will not hear the experts talking about the FLASH-
OVER PHENOMENON because they have been selling
the fireproof box as a solution to the human fire safety
problem. But F LASHOVER voids the integrity of the box.
So, when you hear a fire expert explain why the Atlanta
or the New Orleans fire happened, and if when he is all
through you think to yourself, "what did he say?", you
must realize that there's a reason for your confusion. So
as not to reveal the rot in the timbers of our present fire
technology the fire expert has been talking GOBBLEDY-
GOOK.
H STANDS FOR HOPE
It is the interior content fire that kills. The fire experts
have failed to solve the problem because they ignore the
interior fire and spend most of their time thinking up new
regulations for the structural shell. But there is a practical
soluiton to the fire that kills. The soluiton is to inter-
cept it before it reaches the dangerous FLASHOVER
stage. It is neither difficult nor expensive to do this. As
little as 15 to 30 GPM of water spray can suppress it. An
automatic sprinkler system can virtually guarantee an
almost absolute freedom from serious fire. And it can do
this at a fraction of the cost of some of the fire regula-
tions that are applied today. Automatic fire suppression
offers hope for a truly firesafe human environment.
I STANDS FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS
There is no way to regulate the basic structure to make
fire impossible. No matter how many inches of concrete
are placed on the steel, the interior furnishings can burn,
and the interior fire will kill. Once fire occurs there is only
one practical solution — put the fire out!
When the sprinkler system was developed in the 1800's
it was primarily oriented toward the factory fire. In 1896
several insurance companies formed the National Fire
Protection Association which wrote the first set of sprink-
ler regulations. The sprinkler system was standardized so
that it would be a useful tool for fire insurance rating
purposes.
Unfortunately, the NFPA Standard for sprinklers was
oriented solely for the factory fire. It required large
piping and huge water supplies. NFPA established a
massive overhead steel piping system as the only recog-
nized and approved sprinkler system. The rules essen-
tially prohibited practical protection from being installed
in office buildings, nursing homes, hospitals, institutions,
and other properties where human life was the primary
consideration.
Because of the excessive design requirements most
property owners and architects took a negative attitude
toward sprinklers. No architect wants a monstrously
sized water distribution system running throughout the
ceiling. No building owner wants to pay the excessive
costs that such over-designed systems demand. For years
resistance to sprinklers in high-rise buildings grew — not
because a fire suppression system was impractical, but
because the regulations were ridiculous.
Although the NFPA theoretically produces "concensus"
standards actually they turned control of sprinkler
design over to two special interest groups. As much as
90% of the membership on the NFPA Sprinkler Com-
mittee has consisted of representatives from two indus-
tries (the insurance industry and fire sprinkler industry).
Thus, under the facade of a "concensus standard" the
NFPA has promoted national regulations applicable to
sprinkler design that were in the interest of two industries
and at the expense of the public.
The main reason why high-rise buildings are not sprink-
lered today is that the NFPA established regulations (that
were applied throughout the United States) that made
sprinklers generally impractical.
J STANDS FOR JEKYLL AND HYDE
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a story about a pleasant,
-3-
mild mannered doctor who discovered a drug that
changed him into a vicious dangerous beast. The moral of
the story is that there is both good and evil in everyone,
and a man's behavior depends on which side wins out.
A fire protection standard or code could be looked upon
in the same manner. A standard has a potential to do good
— or do harm, depending upon the way it is written and
enforced.
If there were no standards to establish minimum design
criteria, undoubtedly some manufacturers and installers
of equipment would compromise quality to the point of
system failure. Standards define a minimum level of
satisfactory performance. In this sense a standard is good.
But there is also a danger in standards. Once minimum
levels of design and performance are established it is
quite likely that all systems will be designed to the mini-
mum acceptable level, and nothing more. Thus there can
be a "lock in" at one level of performance and safety.
Those who market systems will resist changes in the
standard because their systems qualify at the existing
performance level.
When a single standard applies nationally, and when
those who have a financial interest in maintaining a static
condition are allowed an excessive control over the
standard, progress and research can come to a screeching
halt.
A single national fire safety standard can have an effect
si milar to that which results from a monopoly. Competi-
tion is technology, and thus invention can cease. Equip-
ment can remain unchanging even as technology advances
in other fields where commerce is free and open.
As time passed, and buildings grew taller and more
complex, as hazards increased, the standardized fire
sprinkler system gradually deteriorated in terms of its
relevance to present day needs.
The fire protection standard that started out years ago as
a Doctor Jekyll has grown into the monster Hyde.
K STANDS FOR KNOWLEDGE
There is a solution to the high-rise building fire and
the solution is knowledge.
Our present fire technology is an extension of the old
solutions that were applied to the factory by the insurance
industry.
We now have the knowledge to eliminate the high-rise fire,
but the old guard is still fighting to preserve antiquated
concepts. But the public is growing weary of their
gobbledygook, and the continued needless sacrifice of
human lives.
The time is now at hand when a dramatic break with
the past is imminent. When television cameras zero in on a
woman leaping out of an upper story window and smash-
ing into oblivion below, every husband in America says to
himself — "But for the grace of God she could be mine".
The television camera has brought the horror of fire into
the living room. The public wants to know why these
tragedies occur. Fire is no longer a statistic, it is a fear
that has come home to America.
is slowly passing from the hands of a small elite clique
of fire protection professionals, who have considered fire
regulations to be their own private province, and who
have, in my opinion, put their own petty power structures
above the needs of humanity.
When the American public demands new solutions to fire
they will find them available. In fact, solutions have been
waiting in the wings for a long time now, waiting for
recognition, waiting for the red light to change to green
so they might come forward to be recognized.
Within the past five years, in a series of 27 Patton Reports,
we have outlined a new fire technology based on elevating
concern for human safety to a status at least equal to that
shown for property.
Also, after more than 15 years of frustrating attempts to
bring a new fire sprinkler system into existence (being
rules), finally we have developed it, tested it (in full view
of building and fire service officials from across the
nation) and gained recognition for it. We call it the Patton
Life Safety System. The Patton Life Safety Fire Suppres-
sion System is the key to high-rise fire safety for humans.
Are you a young fire protection, sprinkler, or fire
alarm engineer with an ability to move on to new
horizons in the field of fire safety? Do you want to
play a part in bri sing net., -d change to a fire
technology that has :le, to respond to the needs
of human safety? If so nd your resume to Patton
Protection Systems, nc. e want a list of conscien-
tious young men iat we an fit into our growing
organization as our opportunities open. Please
spread the word!