This is to understand the five different types of building construction and understand their strengths and weaknesses. The five types are: Type 1 - Fire Resistive, Type 2 - Noncombustible, Type 3 – Ordinary, Type 4 - Heavy Timber, and Type 5 - Wood Frame. The understanding of the protective features of the building types. The understanding of a fire or collapse in any of the types of construction. The understanding of our safety when us as firefighters response to incident involving these types of construction.
Type 1 construction is least combustible. The walls, partitions, columns, floors and roofs are noncombustible. They are designed to withstand the effects of a fire for a limited time and prevent fire spread. They are made of poured concrete and steel. Steel members must have a fire protective coating. (a) Noncombustible steel
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The floors, roofs and interior partitions are made of wood that is why it tends to burn quicker than type 1 or 2 construction. (a) Ordinary type building is built with masonry brick walls on the outside and wood beams going from wall to wall inside. The strengths of these building are constructed from noncombustible materials. But the weaknesses are they have void space in the roof area where the truss system is, also in the wall stud. But if the contractor can put in a fire stop material. Any older ordinary structure might have gone through renovations that can have greater fire risk due to the concealed void spaces. The prefabricated wood truss can be similar to type 5 constructions. They can fail quickly when exposed to fire. Older construction may have thicker roofing then the new construction which would have lightweight roofing and could collapse quicker. During my career I have seen some ordinary construction from older to now a day catch fire. The fire load was also a positive factor in the fire
The Our Lady of Angels school house was a type 3 construction. The school was divided into two wings the north and south wings. The fire started in the basement of the north wing near the boiler room and burned undiscovered in a stairwell until the heat of the fire became too great and broke a window adjacent to the staircase under demolition by fire and caused an influx of new oxygen to fuel the flames. Some important things to note about the construction of the school are: One, that all major exits and the stairwells were made of combustible materials. Two, that there was only one fire exit located at the end of the hall on the second floor in an unprotected corridor Near the stairwell close to the source of the fire. Lastly, there was no fire protection, there were no sprinklers or fire pull stations located in the north wing and all of the 5 extinguishers that were present were located seven feet off of the ground which made access to them incredibly difficult even for adults.
The most pressing issue facing Detroit, in regard to fire, is the steady amount of burning vacant or delipidated buildings, and second to that is the high rate of home fires. For the purposes of this project, the capabilities of
The fire started by someone was smoking and they throw it away and it started the fire. The fire safety in 1911 was not good the fire safety was not safe at all. The safety was like no easy escape, the owners locked the doors so no one can come in late , the hose had no water, and they had oil and scrapes under the desk. The scrapes made the fire worse and made it bigger. Building where made out of wood. Doors opened inwards and they could not leave because it was so crowded. (The elevators shafts became tunnel).
On September 11th 2001 one of the worst events in American history went down. Two Boeing 767 planes hit and destroyed the Twin Towers in Manhattan, New York. Due to the destruction of the buildings it brought up many questions as to why the buildings fell and the overall construction and stability of the buildings. Over weeks of research it has been seem that the construction and lack of stability in the buildings caused the most deaths. Due to lack of fireproofing and locations of exits and safety issues the building collapsed allowing hundreds if not thousands of people to die. The buildings flaws in constructions caused the deaths of many people and is the main cause/reason of death in the twin towers.
The Great Chicago Fire occurred during October 8th and 9th of 1871. The weeks leading up to this disaster were spent with an extremely watchful eye on the city due to the lack of rain. So, one spark or one small fire could start an extremely large fire because of how much wood had been used to build the city. There were even warnings given in form of a building inspection department idea that would inform the city that the buildings were “shoddily constructed firetraps”, according to the Tribune at the time. However, the city did nothing about the proposed problem of a dangerous fire breakout and paid the price.
The Great Chicago Fire started on October 8th, 1871 and is said to be one of the biggest events in Chicago’s history. To this day, nobody really knows how the fire was started; however, most say it started in a barn behind the home of Patrick and Catherine O’Leary. There are claims that their cow was the cause, but that’s just one of the many myths that were started. The way that most of the buildings were built during this time, it was only a matter of time before a major fire happened. With all the catastrophic events that took place during the fire, there were also many great effects that occurred after the fire was over and the reconstruction process began.
Chicago was a city made of wood. This is just one out of a hundred reasons the fire spread so rapidly. Sidewalks and roads were made completely out of wood. There were 600 miles of wooden sidewalks and 55 miles of “pine-block streets.”Two-thirds of the 59,500 buildings were made out of wood. Including the Courthouse and the Tribune Building which were “large and ornately decorated.” The people in the poorer area were in the worst situation. Their “lot sizes were small, and the owners usually filled them up with cottages, barns, sheds, and outhouses.” All of these made out of fast burning wood.
Before the fire broke out on Sunday night, October 8, 1871 there had been a large drought causing everything to be dry and extremely flammable. Many fires had been breaking out in Chicago. Records show that in 1870 the fire fighters went to nearly 600 fires. On Saturday night there had been a large fire that destroyed about four blocks and lasted for 16 hours. Another reason why everything in Chicago was so flammable was because almost the entire city was made out of wood. It was a lot worse in the middle class and poor sections of the town (19). Just about every house was made out of wood. Even buildings that claimed to be fire proof had wood roofs covered with tar. The richer part of town had stone and brick homes, but wooden interiors, wooden stables, and wooden storage buildings (Cromie, 81). Chicago was built on marshland and every time it rained the city flooded, so to help this problem the roads were made out of wood and elevated above the waterline. The day the fire started there were over 55 miles of pine-block street and 600 miles of wooden sidewalks. “Chicago in 1871 was a city ready to burn,” according to Jim Murphy, author of The Great Fire (Murphy, 18).
National Fire Academy. (2009, March 24). Means of Egress: Means of Egress Components. Retrieved from Coffee Break Trainingv-vFire Protection Series: www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/coffee-break/cb_fp_2009_12.pdf
The building that was involved in the fire was one of three buildings involved in the Cleveland Clinic organization. This was the building of the clinic where all the x-rays were done and kept in storage. The other two buildings of the clinic were the hospital and the laboratory; neither building was involved in the fire. The x-ray building was said to be of fire resistant construction. The building had four stories and a basement. The building was constructed of reinforced concrete in the floors and walls; the outside of the building consists of brick. Inside the building the floors were tile and the ceilings are plaster, and at some points there are glass ceilings and skylights. The first floor contained the x-ray rooms and the rooms used for filing current x-ray films which was not involved in the fire. It did not have a sprinkler system and the films were stored in filing cabinets with no prevention of the poisonous gases leaking ou...
The fire grabbed hold of many houses, which caused them to collapse. The strong easterly winds grew stronger so the fire surfaced at an even faster pace (September 02). During the time of the fire, the town supplied piped water. The citizens tried to use the water to kill the fire. But, due to the extreme dryness of the town, the water level was very low, so the fire could not be extinguished (Robson 18).
The timber construction in London was a major fire hazard and caused the fire to grow drastically, but that wasn’t the only thing. The narrow streets and overcrowding made it impossible for people to evacuate their homes. After 3 devastating days the fire was finally over destroying the community. The day after the fire about two thirds of London was destroyed. Although the fire as over, an area of London bursted into flames again later that night.
Concrete is a composite material used widely in the construction industry. Concrete is basically a mixture of cement, water, aggregates and admixture (sometimes). Cement is a fine gray powder that consists of oxidizes calcium, silicon and aluminum. The aggregate used is normally gravel, crushed stone or sand. Admixture is a solid or liquid substance that gives a certain characteristics of the concrete. The cement reacts with water chemically and binds the aggregates together through a process called hydration during hardening or curing of concrete. It means that water helps in the hardening of the concrete while the cement bind the aggregate and also react with water to form a solid mass.
...n most part if steel were to be used in a Type I structure, it would be to reinforce the concrete because concrete is strong in compressive strength but weak in tensil strength. If there is any exposed steel, it is fire proofed with a fire retardant. Mainly the fire hazards that firefighters have to face in these structures are usually because of human error during the construction of the buildings or when occupants are occupying the building. In a construction sites welding, cutting, plumber’s torches, electrical wiring, and heaters all pose a fire hazard. The other risk of this type of building would be of a collapse of the concrete walls or floors during construction.
Authorities have attempted to implement codes or regulations, but that has proved to be very difficult tasks becasue there are many variables that effect the dynamic response of buildings. One way to try to avoid disaster is to evaluate seismic risk is to look at a buildings hazards, exposure, vulnerability, and location. Hazards are, for example, landslides ad soil type. Exposure is a building's occupancy and function. Vulnerability is the expected performance of a building's system, and location is how often earthquakes occur in the area. (Lagorio)