PEOPLE PROTECTION INSTEAD OF PROPERTY momma

Gentlemen:

We have had some serious fires in the last few years that has lead some observers
to the conslusion that the fireproof building is not really a fire safe building.
For example, following the August 5, 1970 fire at One New York Plaza in which a
number of firemen were injured, Chief O'Hagan of the New York City Fire Depart-
ment came close to terming the high rise office building a "firetrap". In fact,
this particular fire has led to the coining of a newphrase in fire protection.
Since this fire the fireproof building has frequently been referred to as being
"semi-combustible".

Now I am very glad that we have a new name for the fireproof building out of this
mess of August 5, 1970. I'm glad we have a new name for the fireproof building
because I doubt that anything else constructive will result.

I believe this fire, and many other fires in recent years, will come and go, as
always, without shaking building designers out of their archaic fire protection
notions.

I say this secure in the knowledge that history has proven me right. We have
failed to hear the lessons of 10,000 fires over the past 100 years. Why should
this one fire in New York City, or the many others that have occurred in recent
years, be exceptions.

For 100 years buildings have been designed on the assumption that fireproof con-
strucM.on provides safety from fire to those who are within the structure. This
assumption is patently wrong. Tt is as wrong today as it was 100 years ago. But
we now have the tradition of 100 years behind us. What was merely wrong 100 years
ago is now not only wrong, but hallowed. The fireproof building is now an un-
assailable tradition.

The belief that fireproof construction affords life safety to those contained
within was not altered when 145 lives were lost in a fireproof building in 1911.
It was not altered when 492 died in a fireproof nightclub in 1942. Tt didn't
change when 180 lives were lost in two fireproof hotel fires in 1946. A hospital
g
fire in 1961 where 16 died didn't chan e it. And I might add that the recent
i i
rash of fires in high rise m ldings hasn't changed anything either.

There is another reason why T believe that our present misconceptions and errors
with respect to fireproof construction will survive without change. If you read
the reports and the articles of those who denounce fireproof construction - who
call it semi-combustible - who say it is not safe for humans - if you read these
reports and articles thru to their conclusions - invaribly they end with new
recommendations for new fireproofing requirements. Yes, the experts denounce
fireproof construction in the opening paragraphs and then dogmatically pursue
the goal of an inherently firesafe structure in their closing remarks. The vast
majority of the recommendations submitted by the experts followin g each fire deal
with the basic construction of the building. But the building is not the fire
problem.

After each fire the fire experts invaribly recommend more of what has failed
in the past. The fireproof building has failed the test of human: life - it
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has failed this test because it is inherently indifferent to the needs of human
life — so the experts are now recommending a super fireproof building. They
want all of the materials designed so that they will not contribute to the com-
bustion process even when surrounded by an intense fire. They want to devise
systems to be able to control the movement of smoke in buildings even though
it is abundantly clear that there is no way to control smoke from a major fire
within a building.

The history of the fireproof building is not unlike the man who decides to run
his automobile on water. He adds some water to the gasoline tank. The car
doesn't run. So he comes to the conclusion that he didn't use enough water.
So he adds some more. It still doesn't work. So he adds some more water. The
truth of the matter is that there is no limit to an imroper solution.

Now let us look at the basic concept of the fire p roof building. When a building
Is fireproof, in truth the structure is being protected against an anticipated
interior fire. Fireproofing a structure so that it can withstand a long duration
interior fire may cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. There is simply no sense
spending this money to fireproof the basic structure unless there is a reasonable
likelyhood that a long duration interior fire will occur. So, the onl y thinT that
fs absolutely certain about a fireProof building is that a long duration interior
fire i s anticipated.

Well, of course, the truth is that it is no surprise at all. It's planned that
way . The fire protection money is spent to protect the basic structure from
fire, and the people are put inside the furnace WITHOUT A WiLTD FIRP, SAFETY SYSTPM
T
TS TGNn Tn PROTECT THEM PROM TH", FrE.

Now I'll prove to you that it is planned that way. I will quote directly from
an article that appeared in the 1926 National Fire Protection Issociation publica-
tion, The Quarterly.

Under the heading of "Fireproof" Office Building Fires", the Quarterly reports
"The experience of many fires has already proved be.77(1„a7etion that there is
no such thing as a "fireproof" building. The fire I:, Dquitable Building,
New York, described in detail in this Quarterly, fur hes an interesting and
somewhat spectacular confirmation of this well est :_,J (1 fact. This fire
received much newspaper publicity and probably has donc, rach in educating the
New York public as to the possibilities of a fire in the best "fireproof" build-
ings".

Note that way back in 1926 the limitations of fireproof construction were well
known. Further research will reveal that the limitations of fireproof construc-
tion were known and documented long before the turn of the century.

Well then, you might ask, how come we have been applying a solution that is
known to be faulty all these years. There are five reasons for this.

First, fireproofing the structure does have a purpose — it is to protect the

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you that the main thrust of fire protection down thru the years has been directed
toward protecting property, not lives.

Secondly, although it is the loss of life that invaribly gets the publicity,
it is the property protection oriented fire experts that make the investigations.
Loss of life is almost invaribly parlayed into improved property protection
features for the building.

Thirdly, although it is possible for building codes to regulate basic construction,

it is not possible to regulate contents. Therefore the content fire problem and
it's effect on human life is largely ignored. Note that no matter how much atten-
tion is paid to the basic structure, there will be no true fire solution for
humans until fire technology comes to grips with the content fire problem and
the exposure of humans to this fire and combustion products.

Fourth, architects have generally felt that they have met fire safety consideratinns
when they design to the requirements of building codes. rnfortunately, code
compliance and true life safety from fire are altogether different animals. 1./hen
the architect turns a building over to the owner it is almost always a safe build-
ing because it is an empty building. It remains a safe building until such time
as the owner fills it with combustibles. The moment the building is loaded with
both people and combustibles there is no real assurance of safety because the
interior furnishings will burn readily, and because people who are exposed to the
interior fire and combustion products will be readily killed.

The fifth reason why we have depended on a non valid solution to the life safety
problem in buildings for more than 100 years is that the only really valid solution
to the problem has been systematically denied to the public.
lT
' , hen we consider the basic building to be a furnace - which it is - and when we
consider the combustible contents to be fuel - which they are - then it becomes
obvious that the only way to prevent the internal fire from killing the occupants
is to_put the fire out.

A built-in automatic f i re suppression system is the only valid solution to the

human life problem. The only way to protect people from fire, once it occurs,
is to put it out.

This is especially true in a hospital where exiting is not a practical solution.

People who are sick or are injured and confined to bed, or are very old and
very young, cannot get up and flee from fire. Therefore, the fire must be con-
trolled promptly. The only sure wa y to control a fire promptly, when it is
small, is with a built-in automatic detection and suppression system.

But for seventy years now the insurance underwriters have maintained the sprinkler
system as their own pet fire solution for industrial plants. They have success-
fully resisted all efforts to modernize this sprinkler system and adapt it to
the purpose of protecting human life. So the sprinkler system has not been
applied as a widely accepted solution to the fire life safety problem in build-
ings because it has been prevented from becoming a practical solution for hospitals,
high rise buildings and similar properties.

I say this without hesitation. The sprinkler system as it exists today as defined
by PFPA-13 is not a practical system for hospitals, nursing homes, and similar
properties where life is the main concern.

Now, let's talk specifically about fire life safety in hospitals.

 -4-

he primary fire safety solution applied to hospitals is fireproof construction.

Note that a hospital usually is designed in the shape of a winged building. In
each wing there is a corridor separated from patient rooms on each side by a
fireproof corridor. Solid core doors in the openins to these patient rooms are
designed to hold a fire back for 40 minutes or an hour.

Thus, our best fire safety plan for hospitals is to design the hospital so that
the patients can be trapped like rats in their own fireproof cubicles when fire
strikes.

This is an absolutely horrible solution to the fire problem for several reasons.
First, survival under this plan requires that doors be closed, windows be opened,
and that everyone remains calm. But is has been proven to us a hundred thousand
times over that panic is a natural by-product of fire. Thus, a fire safety plan
that requires people to remain calm and be knowledgable under fire conditions
flies into the teeth of reality.

It is also a completely unsatisfactury solution because of the flashover phenomenon.

The emergency procedures that are written up for hospitals are based on the assump-
tion that fire progresses slowly and systematically and that there is always time
from fire discovery until fire danger, to put into force the various procedures
that are written up by the experts.

The truth of the matter is that fire can build up in a very inconspicious manner
in an unoccupied room to the point where the ceiling is subjected to high tem-
peratures and combustion gases that are still flammable accumulate. At this
point there can be a sudden exponential increase in fire intensity with fire
flashing across the ceiling. Then the radiant heat from above is directed down-
ward. As combustibles are raised to their autoignition temperatures the entire
room can suddenly burst into a total fire.

This abrupt explosion of a fire from one of a minor size to one of great intensity
can result in a sudden and dramatic release of fire and fire gases into a corridor.
When fire suddenly enters a public corridor and progresses down the corridor with
explosive speed it is frequently too late to put into effect those fire safety
plans that are drawn up by the optimistic experts.

But when the fire experts write up their stories following each major loss of
life fire,.invaribly the human failings of those who were being chased down the
hallways by the exploding fire are discussed in clinical detail. If they had
only closed the doors, if they had only called the fire department, if they had
only followed all of those brilliant procedures, everything would have come up
smelling like roses. The truth is that we have been applying a non valid fire
protection solution for life safety to hospitals and similar buildings for 100
years now, we know that under the panic conditions of an exploding fire it is
the unusual person that can carry out preplanned procedures. But nevertheless
the fire victim invaribly ends up the fire villian.

At the moment, our misdirected fire protection technology is continuin g to churn

along in the wrong direction. For instance s because people often do not have
time to close doors to separate themselves from the fire in the corridor, there
is now a movement under way to require closing devices on all doors to all patient
rooms. This tremendous expense and inconvenience and maintenance problem will
still not change the fact that trapping a patient in his room as fire rages out-
side is a horribly poor fire solution at best.
 -5-
There is also a strong movement to require product of combustion fire detection
systems thruout hospitals. However, Chief Ray Hill and the Los Angeles Fire De-
partment proved rather corclusively that even where a fire detection system is
installed a fire can build up so rapidly as to cause large scale loss of life
between the time of fire detection and the response by the fire department. So,
a system that detects fire but does not prevent its growth or spread is not, and
cannot be a fully satisfactory solution.

There is a movement under way to try to design a building so that smoke does
not spread thruout the building. This may be p ractical if the fire is maintained
small. But there is no practical way to prevent the spread of combustion products
when the fire reaches major proportions.

Many are recommending sprinkler protection. But the sprinkler system as presently
constituted is not a practical solution.

All of this adds up to the following. True fire safety for the hospital must
begin with the realization that fireproof construction is not and cannot be a
true life safety solution for people. Secondly, it is also necessary to recognize
that true life safety can only be achieved thru the installation of a fire sup-
pression system that will detect a fire when small and suppress it promptly.
This is the only valid solution because there is no practical way to eliminate
the combustible contents within buildings, and there is no practical way to safely
isolate the people from the internal combustible content fire once it becomes large.

The third fundamentalchange in our fire protection thinking that is needed is

to recognize that the industrial sprinkler system must be converted to a practical
system for hospitals, and must be specifically designed to protect human life.

Yhen these changescome about in our basic thinking then true fire safety is
possible.

These changes and improvements in our basic fire protection philosophies can very
profoundly effect the design of buildings and create a new architectural freedom.

Note that the present thrust toward fire safety is directed toward regulating
the basic structure. Today hospitals are being designed like medieval dungeons
with each patient room surrounded by masonry wall which is intended to be a fortress
guarding against fire. Note that the fireproof wall around the patient room to
protect him from fire is a concept that is not one day advanced from the moat
around the castle to kee p out the enemy. This fireproof enclnsure for the patient
is not only an asinine plan for fire safety, it is a horrible concept of building
design.

This country is overrun with winged hospitals. An eagle has only two wings but a
hospital invaribly has three or four. This traditional winged sha p e of hospitals
produces long corridors, an excessive exterior wall to floor area ration, and
excessive construction and maintenance costs. The winged hospital plan results
in inefficiency of staff operations and a tortuous distribution of materials.

T. have long maintained that fire protection should be designed to fit a building,
not a building to fit fire protection. But for 100 years now the fire protection
tail has been wagging the architectural dog. Architects like to think that their
designs can rise above what I am sure some think of as petty fire regulations.
But when we look at the true picture architects have totally surrendered to the
fire regulation monster. The basic design of practically every hospital in America
has been set, not by architects - but by fire regulations.
 -.6—

The very sad part is that the fire regulations that have frozen hospital architec-
ture in concrete are actually archaic and usually irrelevant to the life safety
problems as well.

The truth is that our existing concepts of fire safety not only fail the needs
of architecture, more significantly, they fail the needs of the man who is ex-
posed to the fire.

These are the problems associated with hospital fire safety as I see them. But
I did not come here solely to tell you what the problems are - I came to report
to you that we are working. hard to bring about an entirely new concept of modern
fire safety, based not on regulating the structure, but based on controlling the
fire problem.

If the content fire problem is solved then the hospital fire problem is solved,
because it is the contents not the structure that is the problem.

7e have developed a system which we call the life safety system. It is a comp-
letely modernized suppression system. And, incidently, this system is being
developed in the public domain with the full support of the sprinkler system
industry. The research and development costs are being born by the Copper
Development Association.

There have already been two field fire test programs involving the life safety
system. The second program was conducted recently in the "Pioneer International
Hotel in Tucson, Arizona. This was a testing of a prototype system and the
tests were very successful. How the system is being installed thruout the entire
hotel and is being approved by both the fire department and building department.

Now I'll mention just a few features about the system. First of all it is hydrau-
lically engineered to deliver a strong density of water to every guest room. The
design is based on putting plenty of water where the fire is, but we reject the
idea that it takes a thousand or two thousand gallons of water per minute to put
out an incipient fire. The system is designed to deliver up to 100 gpm to any
guest room - which is much more than is needed to control fire in a hotel room.

It is based on the concept that a fire protection system must be specifically

designed to fit a s p ecific building.

I thile existing standards require four sprinklers in a 16' x 16' room, we are
working toward protecting a room at least up to 20' x 20' with a single side-
wall sprinkler.

In the Pioneer Hotel the largest horizontal pipe above the second floor is 1.-?"
copper tube. The risers are inch and a half tube.

I re are fitting the nozzle orifice size to the size of the area being protected.
This makes it feasible to use 3/8 h s p rinklers and 1/2" tube to protect closets
and bathrooms.

He have replaced the Christmas tree type of piping of the conventional system with
both vertical and horizontal grids.

All of this results in a system saving of approximately 500= and a very signi-
ficant improvement in system reliability. The very small piping coupled with
innovations in sprinkler layout made it possible to install a very inconspicuous
system.
 -7-

Some product of combustion detectors are being incorporated and the entire com-
posite system will be directly tied to the fire department. The entire fire
detection and suppression system probably costs no more than a complete product
of combustion detection system thruout the premises.

But our life safety s y stem concept does not end with the development of a fire
suppression system to replace the NITA sprinkler system where life safety is the
primary concern.

The life safety system represents a broad concept of installed fire protection
that will employ both a variety of spray nozzles and electronic detection and
supervisory circuits, that will represent a wedding of the sprinkler and fire
detection systems, and that represents the beginning of an era where fire pro-
tection systems will be designed to meet the needs of an occupancy rather than
the rules of a rule book.

Further, in the final analysis, I am hopeful that it will represent the beginning
of the end of the fireproof dungeon and rigid and unbending building codes and
building code interpreters. I visualize a time in the very near future when we
solve the internal fire problem, not so much by regulating the basic construction,
but incorporating economically practical and extremely reliable systems of detect-
ing and controlling fires.
I foresee the time, again in the near future, where buildings can be more lightly
constructed, more open, and employ glass partitions rather than fire partitions,
and be designed to meet the needs of the facility and the ideas of the architect,
rather than the regulation of the regulators.

All this will be possible - and I say it will be soon - because, in the final
analysis the fire problem, which is the primary cause of the regulations, is not
a particularly difficult problem to solve. The fire problem is a relativel y easy
problem to solve. The only reason it appears to be a difficult problem is that
a hundred years or more obsolete ideas cloud our thinking. The moment we clear
away the cobwebs of antiquity from our fire science we will find that we have the
technology at hand to do the job. The moment the wall of fire obsolescence
crumbles, the solution will be at hand. And I intend to keep hammering away at
that wall until it does crumble.

Talk presented to
The Hospitals and Health Committee of the New York Chapter
The American Institute of Architects
(Date - October 21, 1971)

by Richard M. Patton, President

Patton Fire Protection & Research, Inc.
647 Colts Neck Road
Freehold, N.J. 07720