Legacy Vs Modern Fire

Combustion Reaction: A chemical reaction between a fuel and an oxidizing agent that produces heat.

For as long as mankind can conceive, fire has been a remarkable tool to conquer. When controlled, it provides necessary heat, energy, and fuel for a consumer to use; however, when fire goes unattended, it has the potential to become a wholly destructive element. The more western states of America, such as Utah and Colorado, have repeatedly experienced this concept in its most devastating form: wildfires. A wildfire is generally considered to be difficult to control and fast moving, swallowing anything that lay in its path, including forest or human habitat. As human incursion reaches more remote areas in wooded mountains, wildfires pose a serious threat to high-end homes and secluded cabins. The untamed nature of these fires also allows them to creep into subdivisions and endanger more

In October 2003, San Diego experienced the Cedar Fire that claimed 273,246 acres, 2,820 structures, and 15 lives (CAL FIRE, 2015). It gained the moniker, “The Hundred Year Fire” because another fire of its magnitude was not expected for another 100 years (San Diego Fire Facts, 2016). This expectation was short lived because four years after this fire in October 2007, San Diego experienced the largest wildfire in history (San Diego Fire Facts, 2016). This fire gained the name, “Witch Fire” (CAL FIRE, 2015).

In a combustion reaction, a compound or element reacts with oxygen, releasing a large amount of energy in the form of light and heat.

Fires can either be natural or anthropogenic, which can depend on any situation. A study conducted in 2004 on a wild fire at Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota, suggests that the fire can

This provides insight into how frequently fires occurred, and furthermore provides information as to how they happened, as in the 18th century, due to the lack of cleanliness would result in buildup of old grease and arbitrary sparks in combination to this could cause enormous fires. This means that fires could easily be caused by what some may refer to as accidental incidents, variables for these types of situations are often those that are not under one's

Throughout this unit of Fire History we have discussed and learned about many new topics. Our class created presentations about some of the biggest fires in the history of fire service. We learned about the importance of many fire regulations and securities, how they affected the outcome of previous accident, and how they have improved over time. Here are some of the topics.

The change to engineered lumber also means less wood to burn resulting structure collapse much sooner, risking the lives of unaware firefighters. In addition to building techniques, improved technologies have also given rise to many engineered materials that replace traditional materials found in home furnishings such as cotton and wool. Today, homes are constructed and filled with furnishings that have a petroleum base such as plastics and polycarbonates. These engineered materials burn many times hotter and faster than traditional building materials or what is considered legacy furnishings. In an experiment conducted at the NIST laboratory, two same size rooms, filled with matching furnishings. One room was filled with modern home furnishings while the second room was filled with furnishings made of cotton, wool, and solid lumber. Both rooms were ignited simultaneously, the modern room burned rapidly and flashed over in approximately eight minutes whereas the legacy room took twenty minutes to reach flashover. When we consider the length of time to call 911, take the call, dispatch units, drive to the scene, tag a hydrant and pull a line most likely takes longer than eight minutes, the timing until flashover is critical for victims and firefighters. Additionally, there is a significant difference in temperatures generated between the modern and legacy rooms. The legacy room high temperature reached approximately four hundred degrees before

Within the United States there are five different types of construction. Firefighters need to know and understand each of them. Every construction type have fire resistant weaknesses, these weaknesses will result in fire spreading in the building. If firefighters understand how the fire will spread, then understand how to extinguish the fire faster and more importantly firefighters are better protected from injuries or worse. In America all buildings are associated with one of the types of construction, identified by Roman number. The building codes are, fire resistant (type I), combustible (type II), ordinary construction (type III), heavy-timber construction (type IV) and wood-frame construction (type V). It is important to remember that all buildings are not the same. Each different building construction type will burn much differently than the others do. In order to be able to size-up a building 's fire hazard, firefighters need to be able to understand a buildings contents and construction. Materials that are stored inside of the building and also materials used to construct the building will both fuel the fire. Also know that if a structure is vacant or if the contents in the building are not combustible, the main fire hazard is the building. The scale of the construction types are scaled according to the fire load of combustible material that was used for its construction. A fire resistant building is constructed with least amount of combustible materials, and a

Recently Northern California had deadly wildfires that caused homes to be destroyed. The rebuild could take years and there will be many difficulties along the way. There is a shortage of skilled labors who can help rebuild the homes and the materials needed to rebuild could rise. There is also concern that a shortage of supplies may occur. Northern California has very strict environmental and building regulations, but the governor has lessened these regulations in order to make the rebuild easier. Homes are being built in wildfire-prone areas, but are going to use new construction methods that are ignition resistant and resistant to embers. Builders want to build houses close together so construction can speed up by utilizing the

The sheer physical nature of fire is to consume all fuel that lay in its path. That is exactly what happened in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911. The building itself was reported to be fire proof, but what about its contents? The amount of unused cotton and other fabric scraps that were piled up were ample amounts of fuel just waiting to be consumed by a spark. The business owners kept what little exits and escape routes the building had locked for fear of a thieving employee. The employees mostly took the elevators up and down the building, limiting their knowledge of possible escape routes. Given those three factors combined, it was only a matter of time before disaster would strike.

Much like all events and natural phenomena that pose a threat to civilization, humans have learned to cope with and prevent the loss of human life and destruction of property in devastating blazes that can break out seemingly at random. Fighting fires was not always the science it is today, but due to the use of new technologies and the fundamental understanding of what fire is, how it spreads, how it can kill, and how it is stopped, our protocol when dealing with fires has increased our success rate and continues to grow with applications of engineering, chemistry, and meteorology.

The origin of fire is approximated to be the Paleozoic era (540 mya), especially with the origin of the Silurian land plants. This is because before the photosynthetic organisms the atmosphere lacked enough oxygen and fuels to ignite fire (Glasspool, 2004). This particular period provide some lessons for the current fires in some regions, such as some of the fire regimes evident today occurred during this period like surface fires in many Northern Hemisphere coniferous forests (Cressler, 2001), high frequency and light surface fires evident by charcoal fragments and tree ring patterns (Francis, 1984) similar to today’s fire patterns in some Northwest American pine forests (Allen et al. 2002).The succeeding fire history was marked by high

In order to evaluate common fire hazards within a building and the risks presented by these, it is essential to have an understanding of where fires start, and what causes them in varying occupancy types. The best process to fulfil this aim is to review existing statistical data. Existing data is a vital tool in analysing areas or functions of a building which have the greatest risk to occupants. In particular, those functions or areas of a building having higher fatality rates historically in buildings of a similar type should be treated with special consideration (i.e. Class 2, Kitchen). It is important to be familiar with these statistics as they play a key role in predicting outcomes of future fires. Using this knowledge, fire safety engineers can identify patterns and high risk factors; and apply appropriate building fire safety systems in an attempt to reduce fire

Fire places happen to be objects of both functionality and sweetness. Fire places provide warmth and atmosphere to some certain place in the home. The evolution from the fire place has had great advances within the the past few years as we view the ascendancy from the electric fire place.