Aug. 16, 2008
What’s Safe Enough? Construction Choices Impact Structure Vulnerability, Yet Occupants Still Have Time to Evacuate
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Reporter
Huntington, WV (HNN) – How safe from fire are the new Marshall University wood interior dormitories that open this fall semester? We asked that question previously, but the director of the Fire Safety Construction Advisory Council asked us to revisit the issue.
Before anyone reconsiders their residence hall, Huntington’s Deputy fire marshal Dave Bias reiterated what he said previously --- You are more safe from fire in the new dormitories than you are at home. That’s undisputed since most residences do not contain fire suppression systems, such as sprinklers. So, you are most likely to be killed in a residential fire than in a multi-story apartment or dormitory.
“The estimated impact of residential sprinkler systems in homes is a 74% reduction in death rate, which shows that the large impact of sprinklers on life safety also applies to fire deaths as well,” stated a November 2003 report from the National Fire Protection Association.
Marshall’s new dorms have been stringently inspected by both the state fire marshal and Bias. The buildings have a three part fire protection system, which Bias equates to a “stool,” i.e. if you remove one of the legs, the object topples. The pyramid combines fire detection, fire suppression and containment. Bias believes MU buildings are the safest ones in the city due to the university’s commitments.
The new dormitories have a one hour fire rating and dry wall compartmentalization (for preventing the spread of a fire) along with sprinklers and detectors. Bias determined that all of the occupants would be evacuated in three to five minutes tops, allowing a 55 minute cushion for first responders to contain damage.
But, the Fire Safety Construction Advisory Council stresses that for an additional investment ranging from one percent to five percent, the dormitories could be concrete and masonry.
“Wood frame construction burns with the construction materials becoming fuel for the fire,” said David Dimmick, director of the Advisory Council. “Fire walls built of combustible materials are an oxymoron and deceptive in purporting to provide safety and security to the residents of these types of multi-family dwellings.”
What do you want to protect… lives, property or both? Essentially, the minimal fire code opts for saving lives, not necessarily ensuring the least structural damage. It’s up to the building owners to determine property protection by exceeding codes. For instance, the wood choice has gotten everyone out safely, but the damage to the structure could be significant to a total loss. Concrete construction would likely have contained the blaze to one room, according to the Advisory Council.
About a month after 9/11, fire engulfed the Rees Hall Dormitory at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. The October 11, 2001 inferno sent temperatures as high as 1800 degrees F, melting plastic picture frames, light fixtures, and smoke detectors. In 20 minutes, the raging fire caused $100,000 damage, but concrete construction saved the building from becoming a total loss, according to a brochure from Portland Cement Association.
Rees Hall had been built in 1969 with concrete masonry and hollow-core floor planks, which made the building durable, fire resistant, and lower maintenance and insurance , said Christopher J. Button, a senior project manager.
Dimmick read the June 3, 2008 article on HNN on the “frame interior construction at the Marshall University dormitories. “It is true as the state fire marshal commented that most buildings are constructed to ‘…meet the minimum code due to balancing cost and safety.’ The cost involved in using non-combustible construction is minimal and to cut costs by this small amount and potentially endanger the students the school takes responsibility for while enrolled is disappointing,” the director of FSCAC wrote.
Dimmick and Bias acknowledged that the fire codes are a consensus of firefighters, contractors, insurance companies, and owners; thus, the minimum code requirements represent a balancing of those with vested interests.
“Many involved in the consensus process of code development especially the fire service have begun to wonder if the fire codes have not gone too far in reducing the minimum standards for life safety,” Dimmick wrote.
The director of the Fire Safety Construction Advisory Council tweaked the reported number of deaths that HAVE occurred in sprinkled buildings. “The National Fire Prevention Association has no record this century involving the loss of THREE OR MORE LIVES in a completely sprinkled public assemble, educational, institutional or residential building, where the system was working properly.” The NFPA excludes explosions, flash fires, arson or flammable liquids.
But promoting sprinklers has resulted in compromises in building construction materials to offset increased costs associated with sprinkler systems. Still, based on 1998 data, dormitories have the lowest deaths per 1,000 incidences (2.7), while hotel/motels are 4.6 and apartments 5.1. More injuries per 1,000 incidences (82.4) were reported in dorms as opposed to 56.5 in hotel/motels and 57.8 in apartments.
The wood frame interior standard applies only to buildings up to four floors. Go further off the ground, and, the minimum requirements do not permit wood.
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What’s Safe Enough? Construction Choices Impact Structure Vulnerability, Yet Occupants Still Have Time to Evacuate
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Reporter
Huntington, WV (HNN) – How safe from fire are the new Marshall University wood interior dormitories that open this fall semester? We asked that question previously, but the director of the Fire Safety Construction Advisory Council asked us to revisit the issue.
Before anyone reconsiders their residence hall, Huntington’s Deputy fire marshal Dave Bias reiterated what he said previously --- You are more safe from fire in the new dormitories than you are at home. That’s undisputed since most residences do not contain fire suppression systems, such as sprinklers. So, you are most likely to be killed in a residential fire than in a multi-story apartment or dormitory.
“The estimated impact of residential sprinkler systems in homes is a 74% reduction in death rate, which shows that the large impact of sprinklers on life safety also applies to fire deaths as well,” stated a November 2003 report from the National Fire Protection Association.
Marshall’s new dorms have been stringently inspected by both the state fire marshal and Bias. The buildings have a three part fire protection system, which Bias equates to a “stool,” i.e. if you remove one of the legs, the object topples. The pyramid combines fire detection, fire suppression and containment. Bias believes MU buildings are the safest ones in the city due to the university’s commitments.
The new dormitories have a one hour fire rating and dry wall compartmentalization (for preventing the spread of a fire) along with sprinklers and detectors. Bias determined that all of the occupants would be evacuated in three to five minutes tops, allowing a 55 minute cushion for first responders to contain damage.
But, the Fire Safety Construction Advisory Council stresses that for an additional investment ranging from one percent to five percent, the dormitories could be concrete and masonry.
“Wood frame construction burns with the construction materials becoming fuel for the fire,” said David Dimmick, director of the Advisory Council. “Fire walls built of combustible materials are an oxymoron and deceptive in purporting to provide safety and security to the residents of these types of multi-family dwellings.”
What do you want to protect… lives, property or both? Essentially, the minimal fire code opts for saving lives, not necessarily ensuring the least structural damage. It’s up to the building owners to determine property protection by exceeding codes. For instance, the wood choice has gotten everyone out safely, but the damage to the structure could be significant to a total loss. Concrete construction would likely have contained the blaze to one room, according to the Advisory Council.
About a month after 9/11, fire engulfed the Rees Hall Dormitory at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. The October 11, 2001 inferno sent temperatures as high as 1800 degrees F, melting plastic picture frames, light fixtures, and smoke detectors. In 20 minutes, the raging fire caused $100,000 damage, but concrete construction saved the building from becoming a total loss, according to a brochure from Portland Cement Association.
Rees Hall had been built in 1969 with concrete masonry and hollow-core floor planks, which made the building durable, fire resistant, and lower maintenance and insurance , said Christopher J. Button, a senior project manager.
Dimmick read the June 3, 2008 article on HNN on the “frame interior construction at the Marshall University dormitories. “It is true as the state fire marshal commented that most buildings are constructed to ‘…meet the minimum code due to balancing cost and safety.’ The cost involved in using non-combustible construction is minimal and to cut costs by this small amount and potentially endanger the students the school takes responsibility for while enrolled is disappointing,” the director of FSCAC wrote.
Dimmick and Bias acknowledged that the fire codes are a consensus of firefighters, contractors, insurance companies, and owners; thus, the minimum code requirements represent a balancing of those with vested interests.
“Many involved in the consensus process of code development especially the fire service have begun to wonder if the fire codes have not gone too far in reducing the minimum standards for life safety,” Dimmick wrote.
The director of the Fire Safety Construction Advisory Council tweaked the reported number of deaths that HAVE occurred in sprinkled buildings. “The National Fire Prevention Association has no record this century involving the loss of THREE OR MORE LIVES in a completely sprinkled public assemble, educational, institutional or residential building, where the system was working properly.” The NFPA excludes explosions, flash fires, arson or flammable liquids.
But promoting sprinklers has resulted in compromises in building construction materials to offset increased costs associated with sprinkler systems. Still, based on 1998 data, dormitories have the lowest deaths per 1,000 incidences (2.7), while hotel/motels are 4.6 and apartments 5.1. More injuries per 1,000 incidences (82.4) were reported in dorms as opposed to 56.5 in hotel/motels and 57.8 in apartments.
The wood frame interior standard applies only to buildings up to four floors. Go further off the ground, and, the minimum requirements do not permit wood.
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