- Author
-
Madrzykowski, D.
|
Kumar, S.
|
Panindre, P.
- Title
- Wind, Fire, and High-Rise Buildings: Firefighters and Engineers Conduct Research to Combat a Lethal Threat.
- Coporate
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
Polytechnic Institute of NYU, Brooklyn, NY
- Journal
-
Mechanical Engineering (Americal Society of Mechanical Engineers),
July 2010
- Keywords
-
high rise buildings
|
fire fighters
|
death
|
thermal shock
|
fire fighting
|
wind effects
|
wind direction
|
windows
|
corridors
|
paints
|
occupants
|
smoke spread
|
stairwells
|
heat spread
|
fire statistics
|
experiments
|
fire simulation
|
training
- Identifiers
- testing new tactics; controlled 'wind'; Governors Island experiments; NYC's Governors Island; wind-driven fires; computerized fire simulations; web based training
- Abstract
- In December 1998, three New York City firefighters were making their way along a corridor to reach a burning apartment on the top floor of a Brooklyn building. The occupant had fled and left the door open. The firemen were trying to reach the apartment to close the door. That would give them a measure of control over the situation. It would reduce heat in the corridor, and let them and their colleagues get into position to fight the fire as they had been trained to do. As the three men headed toward the open door, the exterior windows of the burning apartment failed, exposing the fire to the wind. About the same time, the occupant of an apartment at the far end of the hall, about 50 feet away and behind the firefighters, opened the door to the corridor. The windows of that apartment, which was on the lee side of the building, were open. The heat of the fire traveled down the hallway toward the far apartment and overwhelmed the three firemen in its path. The official cause of death was termed "thermal shock."