NO.

16

MODERN BUILDING FIRE SAFETY

0 1971 Patton Fire Protection & Research, Inc.

spotlight of a very dramatic high rise building fire.

Let us not forget that during the period of time when
The following article is a copy of a talk I five or ten or perhaps twenty people die in high rise office
presented on April 17, 1971 at a symposium building fires we have perhaps three to six thousand
entitled, "Dimensions in Fire Protection — people dying from fire in their own homes, and it might
Fire Problems in the Modern Building", held be well to keep in mind that most of these are children.
at the Center for Occupational Education, We are not going to solve the high rise building fire
Jersey City State College. Dr. Robert G. problem, or the fire problem of any building where there
Kahrmann, Jr., Assistant Director, Center for is direct exposure to life, until we accurately define what
Occupational Education Jersey City State the problem is. The problem is one of improper
College, conceived of the idea of a fire application of fire protection technology, rather than
protection seminar in the New York City area, improper architectural concept. The concept of a
and deserves much of the credit for its skyscraper is a perfectly valid and legitimate concept.
success. Other sponsoring organizations The concept of a very tall building is a good concept.
included the Society of Fire Protection The concept of a windowless building or a building
Engineers (New York Chapter), Building containing fixed sash is a good concept. As a matter of
Officials Association of New Jersey, and the fact they are both excellent concepts. With the high price
New Jersey State Fire Prevention Association. of land in a central city tall buildings make sense. With the
air pollution problems of most cities a building that has a
clean air supply and is isolated from the external
environment makes sense. The thing that does not make
sense is the application of an 1860 or 1890 concept of fire
In the eyes of many people the high rise building protection to this modern building design.
represents a special fire problem. I take exception to this In the 1860's or there about the concept of the so
viewpoint. I do NOT consider the high rise building to called fireproof building evolved. The theory behind the
represent a difficult fire problem. I do NOT believe the fireproof building is that it is possible to construct a
protection of life in the high rise building is a problem building so as to be inherently firesafe. This concept of
that presents unusual difficulties. fire design was as wrong in the 1860's as it is today. The
In my opinion, it is not the high rise building that is only reason it appears to be less valid today than it was in
the serious fire problem at all: The REAL problem is the 1860's is that we have become more efficient at
FIRE PROTECTION ITSELF. building taller buildings and the basic flaws of improper
The current existing fire technology that is applied to fire protection are more apparent today because of it.
the high rise building, and to all other buildings as well, is There is no way to construct a building so as to be
not a valid technology. This is the REAL problem we are inherently firesafe. As a matter of fact the building itself
applying an improper and often irrelevant fire protection represents the minor portion of the fire risk. It is the
technology to buildings. and the result is that we are contents of the building that are most likely to be ignited,
doing an extremely poor job of controlling fire in all burn most rapidly, and produce the greater portion of the
buildings. heat and toxic gases.
The reason why the high rise building appears to be a A 100 year effort to build an inherently safe structure
very special case is that the building is bigger and taller has produced a structure with all of the characteristics of
than most buildings and therefore the fire protection an excellent furnace. It is possible today to contain a
flaws which exist in all buildings are dramatized in the raging fire within the fireproof structural shell for 4 hours
high rise building. The flaws and inaccuracies of our without destroying the structural shell. If the intent of
existing fire technology that are often glossed over or our fire technology is to save buildings then we have done
swept under the rug, in the case of building design in an excellent job. But if it is our intent to save the
general, sometimes become GLARING FAULTS in the occupants as well as the structure, then our fire
technology could not be more misdirected. addition, when we control the content fire we control the
structural fire. Finally, when we control the content fire
we terminate the direct threat to human life.
Four hours of structural fire resistance offers little help
to the man who is trapped inside with the content fire.
The content fire is the fire that kills man. Yet we are Now the question is, how do we control the content
establishing elaborate regulations controlling the structure fire?
and we are ignoring the contents.
The complete elimination of combustible contents
We assume that we are doing something wonderful would be an EXCELLENT solution — IF it was possible
when we require the materials that go into the structures to completely eliminate combustibles. It isn't, so that's
not the solution.
to be slow burning, fire retardent or self-extinguishing.
But such classifications have no meaning when the
materials are placed in the environment of a content fire. Fire proofing the steel protects the steel. But not the
At the elevated temperatures of the content fire many so people. That's not the solution. Subdividing the building
called non-hazardous structural materials will burn just into fireproof sections and permitting the fire to freely
beautifully. develop within any one section is not the answer. This
solution seems to me to be very similar to the policy of
controlling a riot by giving the rioters a section of the city
So we have a structural fire problem that represents to hold a riot in.
perhaps 10% of the fire problem as far as human life is
concerned. And this is where we direct our efforts — Controlling the smoke without controlling the fire is a
toward the structural portion of the fire problem. As far fantasy, not a solution.
as life is concerned probably 90% of the problem is
associated with the contents — yet there is no viable plan
at present to solve the contents fire problem. An enclosed exit stairway cannot be a solution because
the content fire, if not controlled, is quite likely to block
the stairway.
The situation could be likened to a man sitting within a
furnace with a pail of gasoline on his lap. We recognize the There's only one really pertinent solution to the
problem and then attempt to solve it by putting another content fire problem. It is the solution developed by the
layer of insulation on the exterior furnace wall. Such earliest man which has come down to us over the ages, but
solutions benefit the furnace, but how about the fellow which seems to have gotten lost in this age: of
inside? technological confusion. The solution is to put the fire
out. Putting the fire out promptly, efficiently and
decisively is the only valid fire protection solution. It is
Because we ignore the contents our structural fire
the only solution that can make sense to the man who is
systems continue to fail to protect human life, and contained within the fireproof structural shell and who
following each failure there are meetings to plan
additional STRUCTURAL solutions, which also will fail does not possess the fire retardent qualities of the building
the need of a man who is exposed to the content fire. So materials. Put the fire out: That is your ultimate fire
as year follows year and disaster follows disaster we put solution. We must have modern systems of prompt and
more and more regulations on the structure, and force the certain fire suppression that are in keeping with the needs
price of construction ever upward. As the schemes to of modern buildings and modern man.
make the structure inherently safe become more complex
this requires the engineers to devote greater attention to The fire problem of a high rise building becomes a
the ever more complex structure: and this takes his monumental fire problem only when we fail to extinguish
attention further and further from the true fire problem the fire when it is small. When we permit it to become
the exposure of man to the internal content fire. large and to get out of control then a fire in a high rise
building is a special category. But if we put it out
promptly and decisively there is no big problem with fire
For example, there is much talk these days about using in the high rise building.
computers to compute the path of the smoke through
buildings and setting up elaborate systems to prevent the
smoke from doing what smoke always does — spread. Why isn't the concept of immediate fire suppression
applied to the high rise building? Basically there are two
reasons.
Such plans are also doomed to failure until we
recognize a fundamental truth: that there is no First where life safety has been concerned the basic
economically practical way of controlling the spread of thrust of fire protection has not been toward
smoke until we first control the fire. When we control the instantaneously suppressing the fire, rather it has been
content fire, which is the significant fire, we also control toward developing the inherently fire safe structure. For
the smoke problem (or at least bring this problem to such 100 years we have been trying to build the so called
dimensions that other controls can have validity.) In fireproof building in such a manner that it is inherently

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safe, but this is an impossible task because it is the building and that is that we should recognize the
contents of the building that is the problem. elevator, not the stairway, as the proper and only practical
exitway for the upper floors. Elevators can be made safe
by doing the following. Every floor above the first should
The second reason the fire suppression concept has not be separated into two zones with a fire partition of
been applied to high rise buildings, and other similar modest fire resistance, say one-half hour to one hour.
buildings, is that the sprinkler system which was Such a partition can be built into the partition
developed in the 19th century as a system for protecting arrangement on each floor at very little or no extra cost.
industrial property, has not yet been converted to be a Doorways in the partition can be held open and closed
system for protecting human life. The sprinkler system automatically on detection of smoke. Passenger elevators
installed today is almost identical to the sprinkler system should be on one side and one or more large freight
that was installed in 1896 and its application to high rise elevators on the other. Thus, no matter where the fire is
buildings and similar buildings where life, not industrial located there will be a zone of safety to wait on the
property is to be protected is very limited. elevators running through the non involved zone, and this
will also give the fire department a base from which to
attack the fire if it is not completely extinguished by the
suppression system.
If the 100 years that we have spent trying to develop
an inherently safe structure had been devoted to In conclusion, I reiterate my belief that the high rise
developing a really first class sprinkler system directed building does not represent an unusually difficult fire
toward protecting human life,there would be no fire problem, that it only appears to be a difficult fire problem
problem in high rise buildings today. because we are applying solutions which are not
specifically oriented toward the basic fire problems of this
building.
The solution to the high rise building fire problem is to
do what should have been done many years ago. We must
develop a method of promptly suppressing the content
fire using the technology and knowledge we have today to
the greatest extent possible. The modern building
demands modern fire suppression systems. We also need a
de-emphasis of the structural protection requirements so
that the net cost of construction, including the
suppression system, is at least held constant and
preferably reduced.

There is one other thing that I consider to be

extremely important for life safety in the high rise