- Author
-
Johnsson, E. L.
- Title
- Study of Technology for Detecting Pre-Ignition Conditions of Cooking-Related Fires Associated With Electric and Gas Ranges and Cooktops.
- Coporate
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
- Report
-
NISTIR 5904
October 1996
- Distribution
- Available from National Technical Information Service
- Book or Conf
- National Institute of Standards and Technology. Annual Conference on Fire Research: Book of Abstracts. October 28-31, 1996,
Gaithersburg, MD,
111-112 p.,
1996
- Keywords
-
fire research
|
fire science
|
stoves
|
preignition
|
appliances
- Abstract
- In 1994, 3,425 deaths, 19,475 injuries, and $4.2 billion in property damage were caused by 438,000 home fires in the United States. The National Fire Protection Association estimated that between 1988 and 1992, range/oven appliance fires averaged about 20% of all home fires and were responsible for approximately 20% of the injuries, 5% of the deaths, and 5% of the property loss associated with home fires. A majority of these range/oven fires involved food. The overall objective of the Consumer Product Safety Commission's Range Cooking Fire Project is to reduce the number of cooling-related fires in homes. The objective of this testing effort was to determine the possibility of detecting hazardous range-cooked food situations to allow alarm or shutoff of the range before ignition occurs. Feasibility of such a detection system also requires the availability of effective technology and its ability to differentiate normal and hazardous situations and thus not alarm falsely.