Basics of Fire and Fire Science

1
Basics of Fire and Fire Science

• Provides the technical foundation and logic for
  fire protection, the general concepts of systems
  and physical science relating to fire protection.
  Forward page 2.

2
U.S. Fire Loss Trends

• Table 1.1 pg 4
• Figures 1.1 to 1.4 pgs 4 5
• Fire around the world
• Fig 1.6 pg 7

3
Fire Patterns by Property Class

• Homes and garages
• American community
• Industrial environment
• Other structures
• Mobile environment
• Outdoor
• Other
• Figs 1.9 1.10 1.11 1.12

4
Deadliest Fires and Conflagrations

• Table 1.4 and 1.5 pg 11
• Conflagrations table 1.8 pg 13
• Four groups noted

5
Fire Prevention

• Every hostile fire requires an initial heat
  source, an initial fuel source, and something to
  bring them together.
• Prevention activities can mitigate all three
  requirements
• Product redesign
• Fuel source change
• Human behavior change

6
Leading Causes of Fire

• Homes and garages table 1.10 pg 15
• American community table 1.1 pg 16
• Industrial environment table 1.12

7
Fire Protection

• Recognizing that prevention will never be 100
  percent successful, it is necessary to plan and
  design so as to mitigate damages when fire
  occurs.
• Statement on page 17

8
Materials Products, and Environments

• If prevention fails the first opportunity to
  reduce fire damage comes in design of materials,
  products and environments so as to slow the
  growth and spread of fire.
• This strategy can be pursued in 7 basic
  approaches

9
Seven Basic Approaches

• Restrict materials used in contents and
  furnishings
• Add fire retardant to materials
• Use fire resistant barriers
• Restrict total fuel load
• Restrict linings of rooms to prevent rapid fire
  spread
• Restrict materials in concealed spaces
• Require safe handling of potential fuels

10
Detection and Alarm

• Home smoke alarms
• 5 in 1972
• 94 in 1997
• Cut risk by nearly half of dying in fire
• All structure (property classes) should be
  detected and alarmed

11
Detection and Alarm

• Major life loss fires frequently cite problems
  detection or alarm as significant contributing
  factors.
• Absense of needed system
• Misapplication
• Lack of maintenance
• Improprt response by occupant

12
Detection and Alarm

• In too many property classes the majority of
  fires occur in facilities with no detectors. This
  is true for the majority of fires in public
  assembly properties, for two thirds of store and
  office property, and two thirds of industrial
  property.

13
Suppression

• Automatic sprinkler are highly effective. Chances
  of dying and property loss are cut by one half to
  two thirds compared to reported fires where
  sprinklers are not present.
• There has never been a multi-fatality in a
  properly sprinkled building.

14
Unsatisfactory Results With Sprinklers

• Partial, antiquated, poorly maintained, or
  inapproperate system
• Explosion or flash over power system
• Fires very close to people who are killed prior
  to system reaction

15
Confining Fires

• The design of building features to contain fires
  and their effects effectively is one of the most
  technically complex aspects of fire protection
  and is difficult to evaluate
• Options for confining fires pg 20 21
• Large losses of life and property are virtually
  unknown in building that comply with modern codes.

16
Evacuation of Occupants

• Most fire protection strategies are designed to
  slow or divert the movement of smoke and fire,
  not to stop it, so key questions are whether,
  where, and how to move occupants.
• Building design principles pg 21
• Principles of escape behavior are essential pg 21
• Important statement pg 22

17
Systems Approaches for Property Classes

• In applying general principles of fire protection
  it is clear that property class have different or
  special considerations that must be understood
• What are some differences?
• Homes and garages
• American community
• Industry
• Mobile environment

18
A Century of Accomplishments

• NFPA has been a force for fire protection and
  life safety for the past 100 years. In that time
  most of NFPAs influence has come through its
  standards and codes.
• NFPA catalog lists hundreds of items
• NFPAs future pg 29

19
Organizing for Fire Protection

• Fire department organization is a critically
  important element of fire protection. The
  effectiveness of the organization and management
  of U.S. FDs determines whether the more than 20
  Billion in annual expenditures for local fire
  protection is spent well or not.
• Table 1.17 Fig 1.15 1.16pg 29,30

20
Organizing Before The Fire

• Preparing for fire begins with Prevention
  activities.
• The FD is closest to the public served therefore
  it is and should be a education source.

21
Organizing at Fires

• Effective suppression requires clear policies and
  objectives, with tactics that are logical.
• It all boils down to GPM applied to a give fire
  BUT other tactical operations are critical.
• All the necessary operations take proper staffing
  for safe and effective outcomes.

22
Protecting Firefighters

• Deaths are in decline BUT too many fatalities
  occur from heart attacks and road accidents.
• Many of these are preventable
• How?

23
Fire Data Collection and Databases

• How do we know what we know about fire? Where do
  the statistics come from?
• Data, its proper collection and analysis are
  critical to well informed decisions.
• NFIRS is a major source

24
NFIRS

• Provides a standard format for collecting fire
  related data.
• It has been in wide use since 1980
• New and improved version 5.0 was promulgated in
  1999.
• About a third to a half of the states have
  accepted version 5.0 during 2000.

25
NFIRS

• One of the long term goals of NFIRS is to promote
  local reporting. Due to fiscal, technical, or
  personnel issues some states have had years in
  which no data was submitted.
• It is hard to precisely define which states are
  or are not participating

26
NFIRS

• A three tiered system
• Local level
• State level
• Federal level
• National Fire Information Council
• Works with USFA to manage NFIRS and promote fire
  incident reporting

27
NIFRS Definitions

• Fire any instance of destructive and
  uncontrolled burning, including explosions.
• Structures not just buildings
• Casualties FFs and civilians
• Equipment involved equipment providing the heat
  that starts the fire
• Intentional replaces incendiary and suspicious

28
NFIRS 5.0

• Data elements
• Reportable, codeable, quantifiable
• Collectable
• Useable
• Different modules
• See pg 42

29
Computers and NFIRS

• Ease entry and retrieval
• Quality control issues (software helps insure
  proper data entry)
• Data retrieval and analysis
• Data should be easy to retrieve
• Analysis is of two kinds
• Routine, periodic
• Special reports usually very specific

30
Getting The Big Picture On Fires

• NFIRS
• NFPAs annual report
• survey of selected FDs used to develop national
  estimates (not very detailed)
• Other sources
• Fire Incident Data Organization (news, word of
  mouth)
• Uniform criminal reporting ATF (arson)
• Consumer product safety, Nat. Safety C

31
Using Data and Statistics

• Potential data users
• Table 3.1 pg 54
• Ten major findings on the nature of the fire
  problem from analysis of the past decade
• Table 3.2 pg 55 56

32
Using Data and Statistics

• Basic tools for NFIRS analysis
• Coding Manual
• Reference Guide
• Design Documentation Manual
• Conversion tables
• Record layouts, edit checks, dictionary

33
Using Data and Statistics

• Data source issues
• NIFRS is Not a complete census
• NIFRS is not complete or a random sample
• Reporting policies and practices
• Important for completeness and accuracy
• Each state is different (not good)

34
Approaches to Data Analysis

• Top-Down
• Summarizes the big picture and subdivides into
  major parts
• Provide the broad picture
• Topic-Driven
• Analysis in specific issues in a particular type
  of fire problem

35
Analysis by Cause and Property

• The dimensions most frequently chosen for
  top-down and topic-driven analysis are fire cause
  and property type.
• Fire incident data code contains five fire cause
  related elements
• 1.heat source, 2. equipment involved in ignition,
  3. form of material ignited, 4. type of material
  ignited, 5. ignition factor

36
The Five Dimensions

• Six major patterns are extracted from the
  information gathered
• Intentional vs. unintentional
• Equipment
• Behavior
• Heat source
• Item ignition
• Cause

37
Using Data in Program and Strategy Analysis

• Program and strategy analysis is the most
  decision relevant use of data because it tries to
  project the future and the ways in which the
  future will be different if a particular program
  is or is not adopted.
• much of the future will be different due to
  change

38
Using Data in Programand Strategy Analysis

• The future will most likely be a different
  mixture of elements already present that must be
  justified with changing conditions and new
  elements.
• Analysis of the projected impact of a strategy or
  program involves 5 steps

39
Using Data in Programand Strategy Analysis

• 1. identify the part of the fire problem that the
  strategy can affect and measure the size of that
  problem
• 2. estimate the likely percentage reduction if
  specific strategies or programs are put in place
• 3. estimate how much of the population will adopt
  or be affected by the strategy or program and how
  quickly

40
Using Data in Programand Strategy Analysis

• 4. estimate how often the strategy or program
  will be defeated in practice
• 5. combine the measures of fire problem size from
  step 1 and percentages from steps 2 to 4 to
  produce estimates of the net percentage reduction
  in the fire problem and of the new size of the
  fire problem