Wood-frame or modern day construction, are residential houses made out of lightweight wood. These types of structures would be classified as type V construction. Wood-frame construction is combustible, and as it burns it loses its strength, and at one point collapses. Firefighters have come a long way since the Romans created the first fire department. Since modern day construction is changing, firefighters have to fight fires smarter. There are new tactics developing every year on which is the best way to fight a fire, of course, there’s controversies with each statement and fire departments do not necessarily like change. With modern day construction, the lightweight wood is creating unpredictable fires at times. The fire can have a very …show more content…
In balloon frame construction, studs are two or more stories high from ground level to the eave line. The horizontal board called a ribbon board is nailed to the studs. The joists are rested on the ribbon board, and the channels between the studs may be opened from the cellar to the attic. When a balloon framed house catches on fire, the fire can travel between the space of the joists and make it an attic fire which are dangerous. Here is an example, Figure 1, of a balloon and platform frame: As one can tell from the image, balloon frame has the studs run all the way up to the eave line. Unlike platform, they stop at each level of the house. In platform frame construction the first floor is built like a platform. The subflooring is laid on the joists, then the frame for the first floor walls is standing on the first floor. Subflooring is the structural member that serves as the base of the finished floor. Then the second story joists are placed alongside with the subflooring being laid. Then for more floors it’s repeated the same way as floor two was. Three stories are usually the highest for platform frame construction. In platform frame construction, there is no continuity from top to bottom in contrast to balloon frame. However, there is one characteristic that balloon and platform share, which is when there is a fire, smoke and heat can rise to the top of the home to …show more content…
Wood shingles are split pieces of wood used for roofing. What type of roofs are made of are very important to firefighting purposes because the can self-vent itself, and knowing which type of shingles and type the structure is, is going to decide if there is going to be ventilation operation. There are testing laboratories that rate wood shingles on a scale of A, B or C. A being the most fire resistant and C being the least. The test includes exposure, spread of flame, and resistance to burning brands or flying pieces of wood. Then some homes may have heavy clay tile roof instead of wood shingles. Or some structures could have a steel roof panel under the wood shingles. For example, La Grande Rural Fire District conducted a burn to learn operations for new and upcoming firefighters like myself, to see what it’s like to be in a structural fire. Getting towards the end, my duty was to make a ventilation cut on the D side of the structure. The type of roof was like a gable and valley roof. This roof was hard to make a thorough cut because there was a strong metal panel of roofing and then the wood shingles. Heavy clay tile roofs were popular in the 1920’s and 1930’s. There are reports of tile roofs collapsing from firefighters venting, to the roofs collapsing over them and having line of duty
Brannigan, Francis L, and Glenn P. Corbett. Brannigan's Building Construction for the Fire Service. Sudbury, MA: National Fire Protection Association, 2007. Print.
The ultimate aspect of self deception can be portrayed through wooden headedness; Wooden headedness is an individual does not accept facts to be the truth. Wooden headedness possesses the tendency to defeat the embraced idea of open mindedness. Historian Barbara Tuchman asserts the belief that wooden headedness is a widely occurring phenomenon in organizations and human behaviors. Throughout human affairs, the behavior of wooden headedness is quite common and surfaces more frequently than expected.
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 began at the Korn Leather Factory at 57 Boston Street, which is located in the northern part of the city. Chemicals that were used to create varnish exploded starting the blaze. It is believe that the heat of the day built up in the storage room where the chemicals were kept that caused the explosions and started fires. Some of the factory buildings had a sprinkler system, but because of the wooded structures the buildings were made of the few that had the sprinkler systems were ineffective, allowing the fire to grow hotter. It was a hot windy day that day, and the wind caused the man-made fire to become exponentially worse. The strong wind fanned the flames south into the heart of the city and the fire jumped to nearby buildings and kept growing. During this time most building and homes did not follow any fire ordinances, so the roofs were made out of combustible material like plain wood shingles. Embers were blown from
In the last eighteen years in Baltimore, lightweight truss construction has become a household name in firefighting. Two reason for this is the amount of new construction in the area and secondly, the unpredictability of lightweight truss failure during fire attack. Brannigan's (2015, p. 202) describes Lightweight wood truss as a 2-inch piece of wood, the lightweight wood truss is pieced together on a factory table and subsequently joined together with light gauge galvanized steel gusset plates. IFSTA states (2015, p. 287) the reduced mass of their components and the interdependence of those components make them vulnerable to early failure under fire conditions. CDC states that that lightweight wood truss can fail early as 6 to 13 minutes
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.
In the 1700’ the revolutionary war was occurring and fire was a huge threat to the colonist. Houses in urban areas were built really close together. Making it easier for the spark to spread, and they spread fast. Fires were being used every day at this time since there was no electricity, they used it for the warming of the house, candles for lighting and cooking. Fires were sometimes left neglected and then the fires became devastating because the people neglected to take care of it and prevent it from spreading. In 1788 the Virginia legislature passed an act to authorize the establishment of fire companies, after losing their original building to a fire, twice. This act made it possible for firefighting groups to form who responsible for their own equipment. They had fire engines and many
I will be discussing artwork using the Barthes Rhetoric of Image. I will discuss how it uses linguistic message, non-coded iconic, coded iconic, and idiolect. The image I am using is “American Gothic” by Grant Wood on page 538. I hope this painting shows the reflection of hope in the people despite the Depression.
The Rosewood Report describes how white mobs reign as a terror against African Americans during the period 1917 to 1923.
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).
I really grew interested in Smoke Ventilation when my friend Dj,( who is in the process of becoming part of the Mariposa CDF program), told me about how smoke itself can start a fire, if hot enough. I asked him if he could tell me more about Smoke Ventilation, so he gave me some helpful information. I also wanted to learn what considerations must be made when dealing with a structure fire, and what are the important aspects of strategy and tactics. It turns out that Dj also had information on that as well. I asked him for the information he new along with the work he had finished in his class. He gave me some packets called,” Fire Fighting Technology,” which teaches a person about Smoke Ventilation and the important aspects of strategy and tactics.
China had developed a tradition of timber-frame architecture likely since the Han Dynasty. Unfortunately, due to the erosion of the woods and the destruction of fire, wooden structures rarely survive for hundreds of years. Even worse, with the modernizing movements from the early 20th century, the removal of what's feudal and superstitious was prevalent, harming the preservation of architecture. There is not any surviving timber-frame architecture prior to the Tang Dynasty still standing today. Yet, tombs, murals and stone structures do endure the test of time.
First, of all ⅔ of 59,000 buildings were made of wood. The roads, sidewalks, beds, building, houses, etc… It was easier for the fire to hit Chicago.
As a rule, builders in seventeenth-century London built houses from wood and pitch. Pitch is a sticky substance produced from tar and black in color. The strength of the pitch held the building materials together. Pitch also acted as a water proof coating for the wood, keeping moisture out, and preventing harm to the wood. Builders formed the roofs of houses from straw. It was not uncommon to see fires in London since not only were the houses highly flammable, but because open flame heated the homes. London used to be extremely crowded; with the houses being built close together, fire could easily spread from house to house and become a fire hard to contain (Alagna 12). Firefighting consisted of very simple techniques before the Great Fire. If there was a fire, designated workers pulled down houses with hooks to form a firebreak which would stop the fire from spreading any further. Other than the tools used to pull down the houses, there were not really any other firefighting devices (Alagna 13-14).
The Mann Gulch wildfire was a tragic event that took the lives of 13 firefighters who had jumped into the area to battle the fast-moving fire. The tragedy was a severe hit to the Forest Service, which had not experienced a death during a decade of smoke jumping (Rothermel, 1993). Along with the horrific deaths, Rothermel (1993) states the Mann Gulch fire had serious consequences for the Forest Service and its research branch. The fire disaster changed the landscape of wildfire firefighting. Due to the tragedy, the Forest Service would establish new training techniques and improved safety measures for its firefighters and smokejumpers along with more emphasis on fire research and the science of fire behavior (Lehman, 2009). With the training and research, better firefighting techniques and equipment evolved (Lehman, 2009). The analysis will evaluate how the firefighters