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Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on February 10, 2009 at 1:21pm

There are many ways that a fire can be started, and many of us have seen the result. By responding to your post, even though your intentions are totally honorable, one might be letting the "cat out of the bag"... Describing in detail specific points as to what to do and how to do it might prove useful for someone on this site looking for ways to be arsonist of the month... So, with that said, I would invite you to make note of an email address where someone could reply to you, help you out and yet not aid someone from learning right along with you, but on the dark side...

Now if you were to be talking about hazmat and storage issues that resulted in a fire then maybe one might consider zinc phosphide being stored in 55 gallon drums (rat poison). Oh sure, they are stored just fine, looking at rack storage requirements and such but what no one knew was that a fork life had punctured one of the drums. What no one knew was that when a water line broke and flooded part of the warehouse, the water intimately mixed with the zinc phosphide, creating an exothermic reaction which both liberated heat (flames and smoke) as well as generating hydrogen and phosphine gas. Two-days later, one of the fire engineers on scene that was exposed to the smoke, wearing full PPE ended up in a hospital coughing up blood from an ulcer inside his throat as a result of the exposure... With that all said, enforcing the fire code to provide concrete filled barrier posts to protect the commodity could have resulted in one firefighter not being critically injured for life, even though he thought he was safe wearing turnouts and SCBA...

Bottom Line: The fire code saves lives... but you have to be prepared for the unexpected. The significance of the photo above is that it was a welding tank filled with acetylene that was flown through the air when the MRI (magnetic resonance imager) was turned on. It's a giant magnet and the cylinder was metal... flammable gas + ignition source = uh oh... Remember to think out of the box...
Good luck Jesse,

Mike Schlags, Fire Captain
Santa Barbara, CA
mschlags@yahoo.com

PS: I totally made up the story about the zinc phosphide but you learned something and have a great example to share with your class... : )

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Permalink Reply by turk182 on February 10, 2009 at 1:29pm

Mike you made a very good point about the arsonist using this post I would never of thought of that.

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Permalink Reply by John on February 10, 2009 at 2:14pm

Same here

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Permalink Reply by Moose on February 10, 2009 at 2:44pm

But his idea that he was looking for examples on was weather or not a 2 hour rated fire wall actually contains fire for 2 hours. I see your point Captain about the arson stuff, but he was asking a specific question too.

That would be a great way to accomplish your hypothesis and experiment. You could put two sheets of 5/8" sheetrock together and set a fire under it and see how long it lasts under the fire conditions. You could video this experiment with your dept standing by at a drill night. Good PR and it will be a decent paper about the properties of sheetrock, gypsum board or whatever its called in your area and its resistance to flame.
You could use different parameters too, like one test with wooden studs, one with metal. Use paper batts of insulation than have one test with blown in insulation...this could be a good way to go and I would be interested in your results. Good Luck!

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Permalink Reply by Jesse Bruck on February 10, 2009 at 4:53pm

yeah i never really thought about the arson thing either, but i think i am going to go with the firewall idea. should i build a small wall and like set it on saw horses with the fire under it or set it up verticaly? i think it would deffinitly burn through faster if its over top.

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Permalink Reply by Moose on February 11, 2009 at 10:22am

Make a small cube, like 4'X4' and start a fire inside it to see how long it takes to burn through the walls. It would be more realistic to check the accuracy of the burn when the walls are vertical like they are supposed to be, the rating of the sheetrock is factored in using this as a factor. The big thing with this experiment would be the costs; Lumber, sheet rock, nails and the insulation if you want to make it truly to scale. But it would be a great project.
Good Luck

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Permalink Reply by Jesse Bruck on February 11, 2009 at 12:14pm

yeah thats i good idea to make the cube. i think i might be able to get the materials for free because i worked on a small construction company for a while before school and we had just finished a 4 story firewall and took alot of the extra materials back to the farm.

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