- Author
- Walton, W. D. | Madrzykowski, D.
- Title
- College Dormitory Room Fires, March 2002.
- Coporate
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
- Sponsor
- Federal Emergency Management Agency, Washington, DC
- Report
- VIDEO,
- Keywords
- room fires | universities | dormitories | fire tests
- Abstract
- Video Illustrates Impact of Sprinklers on Dorm Room Fires It may not be the MTV version of "Burnin' Down the House" by the Talking Heads, but a new fire research video from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) promises to be a hot item anyway-that is, with those concerned with fire safety in dormitories. The nine-minute video of recent test fires in two scheduled-for-demolition University of Arkansas dormitory rooms taken by in-room cameras dramatically demonstrates how effective sprinklers can be in controlling fires in this type of environment. Two fully furnished dormitory rooms are depicted in the video, one with and one without sprinklers. A fire is ignited in the wastebasket in each room. In the dormitory room with the sprinklers, the devices activated in under two minutes and extinguished the fire. In the room without fire extinguishing equipment, the blaze reached "flashover" conditions (when all combustibles in a room burst into flames and the fire spreads rapidly) in less than six minutes. The video also includes post-fire photographs, which can be used to compare the damage caused by each fire. The college dormitory experiments were sponsored by the U.S. Fire Administration. This video should prove to be an effective education tool. For a free VHS copy, send a request to NIST's Nelson Bryner by fax at (301) 975-4052 or by e-mail to nelson.bryner@nist.gov.