Not just what and how, but why!
My last post asked a number of questions focused on results of baseline compartment fire tests conducted by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) as part of a research project on Firefighting Tactics Under Wind Driven Conditions. This post looks at the answers to these questions and continues with an examination of NIST’s … Read more
My last post introduced a National Institute for Standards and Technology research project examining firefighting tactics for wind driven structure fires (particularly those occurring in high-rise buildings). The report on this research Firefighting Tactics Under Wind Driven Conditions contains a tremendous amount of information on this series of experiments including heat release rate, heat flux, … Read more
Weather, Topography, and Fuel In S-190 Introduction to Wildland Fire Behavior, firefighters learn that weather, topography, and fuel and the principal factors influencing fire behavior in the wildland environment. How might this important concept apply when dealing with fires in the built environment? Factors influencing compartment fire behavior have a strong parallel to those in … Read more
What is Extreme? There is some debate about the use of the term extreme fire behavior (some of my colleagues indicate that processes such as flashover is not “extreme” but simply “normal” fire behavior). I contend that flashover would potentially be a normal part of fire development, but is also extreme, at least in the … Read more
Application of the B-SAHF (Building, Smoke, Air Track, Heat, & Flame) organizing scheme for critical fire behavior indicators to photographs or video of structure fires provides an excellent opportunity to develop your knowledge of fire behavior and skill in reading the fire. While video provides the opportunity to observe fire behavior indicators over time, still … Read more
25 Years Later Firefighters Scott Smith and William Duran died as a result of flashover during a search and rescue drill in Boulder, Colorado on January 26, 1982 (Demers Associates, 1982, August). This incident has particular significance in that it was one of the major influences in the development of National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) … Read more
This is the first of a series of posts that will examine the events and circumstances surrounding the death of a Firefighter Paramedic Apprentice in Baltimore Maryland in 2007. Unfortunately many of the factors involved in this incident are not unique, but are common to many live fire training fatalities that have occurred over more … Read more
The previous post (Shielded Fires) examined US Navy research on the effectiveness of different nozzle techniques when dealing with shielded fires conducted on the ex-USS Shadwell, the US Navy full scale damage control research facility (see Figure 1). Figure 1. USS Shadwell The researchers tested two different methods for controlling flaming combustion overhead while moving … Read more
Fire control and extinguishment is a fairly straightforward process when water can be applied directly to the burning fuel. In the case of burning ordinary combustibles, the energy required to heat the water to its boiling point and convert it to steam cannot be used to continue the process of pyrolysis and lowers fuel temperature … Read more
Deliberate Practice Application of the B-SAHF (Building, Smoke, Air Track, Heat, & Flame) organizing scheme for critical fire behavior indicators to photographs or video of structure fires provides an excellent opportunity to develop your knowledge of fire behavior and skill in reading the fire. As you complete this Reading the Fire exercise, think about what … Read more