Publisher’s version / Version de l'éditeur:
Vous avez des questions? Nous pouvons vous aider. Pour communiquer directement avec un auteur, consultez la
première page de la revue dans laquelle son article a été publié afin de trouver ses coordonnées. Si vous n’arrivez pas à les repérer, communiquez avec nous à [email protected].
Questions? Contact the NRC Publications Archive team at
[email protected]. If you wish to email the authors directly, please see the first page of the publication for their contact information.
https://publications-cnrc.canada.ca/fra/droits
L’accès à ce site Web et l’utilisation de son contenu sont assujettis aux conditions présentées dans le site LISEZ CES CONDITIONS ATTENTIVEMENT AVANT D’UTILISER CE SITE WEB.
Proceedings of the 8th International Symposium on Fire Safety Science, p. 1652,
2005-09-01
READ THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THIS WEBSITE.
https://nrc-publications.canada.ca/eng/copyright
NRC Publications Archive Record / Notice des Archives des publications du CNRC :
https://nrc-publications.canada.ca/eng/view/object/?id=09227fd0-eafd-432f-9096-6645a2abab88 https://publications-cnrc.canada.ca/fra/voir/objet/?id=09227fd0-eafd-432f-9096-6645a2abab88
NRC Publications Archive
Archives des publications du CNRC
This publication could be one of several versions: author’s original, accepted manuscript or the publisher’s version. / La version de cette publication peut être l’une des suivantes : la version prépublication de l’auteur, la version acceptée du manuscrit ou la version de l’éditeur.
Access and use of this website and the material on it are subject to the Terms and Conditions set forth at
Fire spread mitigation for closely-spaced houses
http://irc.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
Fire spre a d m it igat ion for close ly-spa c e d
house s
N R C C - 4 7 6 4 8
S u , J . Z . ; L o u g h e e d , G . D . ;
T a b e r , B . C . ; Y u n g , D . T .
A version of this document is published in / Une version de ce document se trouve dans:
Proceedings of the 8th International Symposium on Fire Safety Science, Beijing, Sept. 18-23, 2005, p. 1652
Fire Spread Mitigation for Closely-Spaced Houses
JOSEPH SU, GARY LOUGHEED, BRUCE TABER
Fire Research Program, National Research Council of Canada Ottawa, Canada
DAVID YUNG
CSIRO Manufacturing and Infrastructure Technology North Ryde, Australia
ABSTRACT
Spatial separation is one of the measures to reduce the potential for fire spread between neighbouring buildings and subsequent fire development to conflagration. With rising land and infrastructure costs, there is increasing pressure to allow new houses to be built closer together. While most code requirements and recommended practices of exterior wall construction are still based on fire studies involving cellulosic fuels, building contents have changed with increased amount of non-cellulosic materials.
Full-scale experiments were conducted to study fire spread between adjacent houses involving non-cellulosic fuels. The fire room was 3.0 m wide, 2.5 m high and 3.0 m deep with a rough opening on its exposing wall. Wall assemblies (3.7 m x 5.6 m) were wood frame construction with soffits and partial roofs. The fuel package consisted of 100-kg spruce and 50-kg acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) thermoplastics pipes, arranged in 2 cribs with the ABS pipes on the top. The surface area was 0.15 m2/kg for the spruce cribs and 0.39 m2/kg for the ABS pipes. The fuel load was 17 kg/m2 in the fire room. All experiments developed ventilation-controlled post-flashover room conditions. Whilst the upper room temperature developed to beyond 1000°C, the temperature at the window opening was approximately 100°C higher than those inside the fire room. The thermoplastics gasified to produce a fuel-rich mixture in the room and burned vigorously after issuing from the fire room opening. During the 15-min experiments, horizontal flame projection from the fire room was greater than 2 m. The heat exposure to the façade located at a distance of 2.4 m was up to 25 kW/m2 (the critical non-piloted ignition level for most cellulosic materials). The flame impinged on the eave of the exposed wall in all experiments. Deep eaves could trap hot gases in-between the adjacent houses and increase the fire exposure risk. Results indicate a continued need for adequate spatial separations between houses including eave separation.
Aluminum cladding on combustible sheathing or gypsum board as exterior sheathing was studied as potential mitigating measures to reduce the danger of fire spread for closely spaced houses. The experiments showed that these measures could limit flame spread for houses at closer spatial separation distances and provide protection for the neighbouring house for a period of the typical 10-min response time of a fire department. Results also showed that blocking attic ventilation from eaves adjacent to neighbouring houses was another measure to reduce horizontal fire spread between houses and vertical fire spread into the attic spaces. Further work is required to understand fire characteristics of non-cellulosic fuel materials and the critical parameters that impact on exterior fire spread in both the horizontal and vertical directions.
