- Author
- Putorti, A. D., Jr.
- Title
- Full Scale Room Burn Pattern Study.
- Coporate
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
- Sponsor
- National Institute of Justice, Washington, DC
- Report
- NIJ Report 601-97; Project No. 96-002IA, December 1997, 59 p.
- Contract
- NO.94-IJ-R-004
- Keywords
- accelerants | arson | building fires | burn patterns | carbon dioxide | carbon monoxide | char | charring | fire investigations | fire measurements | oxygen concentration | residential buildings | room fires
- Abstract
- One method fire investigators use to determine the cause and origin of a fire is the study of patterns or "indicators" left on building components or building contents by the fire. Previous studies have shown that some traditionally used indicators have little or no technically defensible basis. In order to study the patterns or "indicators" produced by fires, full scale experiments were conducted using test rooms furnished as residential bedrooms. Temperatures and heat fluxes at various locations in the rooms were measured. In some cases, the concentrations of oxygen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide were measured. This report describes the experimental setup, measurement results, and the post fire inspection of the rooms.