- Author
- Smith, D. A.
- Title
- Smoke and Toxicity.
- Coporate
- QMC-Wolfson Fire and Materials Centre, London, England
- Journal
- Fire and Materials, Vol. 9, No. 4, 167-170, December 1985
- Book or Conf
- International Conference on Flammability. INTERFLAM '85. Conference Workbook. March 26-28, 1985, Guildford, England, 75-82 p., 1985
- Keywords
- toxic gases
- Abstract
- Smoke and toxic gases (STG) are the main cause of fire deaths. They combine to make escape difficult and to retard rescue work and fire fighting. The paper reviews advances in the characterization of the STG hazard, and discusses improved materials of construction to meet the new, more stringent safety criteria used by responsible architects and design engineers. Because of the wide choice of safer materials now available at reasonable cost in a number of product areas such as furniture foams and cable insulation, the time is approaching when such materials can be introduced without harming the economics of these industries. Indeed, a convincing demonstration of intrinsic safety could encourage the introduction of improved plastics and other organic materials into a wider range of market applications.