PATTON REPORT NO.
44
WHY DID DALE CADDELL DIE?
0 1976 Patton, Inc.
At 12:25 A.M. on Sunday morning, March 28th, fire raced
thru the home of Dale Caddell, a retired Navy chief petty
officer, killing him and his 15 year old son. Dale's wife,
Josephine, was caught in the conflagration, and although
pulled still alive from the home by firemen, she died the next
day. One surviving son, Tym, survived by diving thru a
window.
Why did it happen? Why did Dale Caddell die? No doubt
there will be the usual fire investigations.
But fire investigations usually place the blame on an
ignition source, a cigarette, a match, a television set, a faulty
electrical cord. But these are not causes, they are merely some
of a thousand ways fire can be initiated. That's like saying a
man became a murderer because he was born.
The real question is — once fire occurs — why does it grow
to killer size? Why are people dropped in their tracks by fire?
Why isn't a man able to get out of his home sometime between
the time of ignition and the time of death? I do not ask why
did the fire start, fire starts in a thousand ways, I ask why did
the fire kill Dale Caddell. This is a question that is never
answered by the fire investigations. I believe I know the
answer.
THE NEWS ACCOUNT
The Columbus Dispatch on March 29, 1976 featured a
story of the fire on the first page. Tym, the surviving son gave
the following account of what happened inside the home.
Shortly after midnight the mother, Mrs. Caddell, heard the
;ound of the fire and smelled the smoke. She woke the rest of
the family and asked Tym, age 17 to call the fire department.
He went down the hall to make the call, but the heat was so
tremendous, he said, "it was like a blast" and knocked him to
the floor. Tym returned to his bedroom and tried to get out a
window, but the built-in metal desk under the window was so
hot he was unable to touch it.
Tym ran out into the hall past his brother Jack's room and
shouted to him. Jack age 15, told Tym he was getting out.
Tym entered his parents' bedroom and smashed out the
window there with his hands. Then he dove out the window —
fully expecting his parents to follow him.
But his parents were dropped by the heat and smoke. The
youth and a neighbor who came to his aid, tried to re-enter the
house but they were beaten back by the heat.
Fire Chief, Jack SeIvey, the chief in charge of the fire
departments operations, reports that that it started in the
living room and "that's about all we know about it." They
found the back rooms of the house filled with deep, dense,
black smoke. Mrs. Caddell was lying on a bed in the room,
while the husband was on the floor. The other boy was found
on the floor of his room. The three were carried from the
home. Dale Caddell and his son, Jack were dead. The mother
died the next day.
And so ends a typical story of a typical fire in a typical
family home. But why did they die? 1 believe I know the
answer.
THE FLASHOVER PHENOMENON
Very few people realize how a fire can progress in a home.
Almost invariably people think that a fire grows slowly in a
progressive fashion, telegraphs its presence to occupants a
considerable period of time before it fills the house, and that it
is possible to think in a rational manner and find escape once a
fire is discovered. But this is not necessarily so.
Fire will start usually in one small area, such as a sofa or TV
set. Once ignited, the fire will usually burn quietly and
unnoticed, much as a fire will burn within a fireplace. Often
there is surprisingly little smoke. I have observed test fires in
rooms where after ten minutes of burning there was nothing
but a very slight haze at the ceiling, and no indication outside
of the room that a fire was in progress. But all the while, heat
will be accumulating at the ceiling. The ceiling will slowly
become a radiant panel, radiating invisible heat rays toward
the floor and the contents of the room. Slowly, the tempera-
tures of all the combustibles within the room will rise.
But there may be no signs outside of the involved room
that will alert someone (elsewhere in the house) that a serious
thermo-dynamic process is in progress.
Suddenly — explosively, flashover occurs. One moment
there is a small fire in a corner of a room. The next moment
the room is one total fire, a dynamo of flame and combustion
gases. It is like a miniature atomic bomb exploding.
FLASHOVER GOT THEM
The account of the fire which killed the Caddell family
sounds like a flashover fire. Tym, at his mother's direction,
went down the hall to make a telephone call to the fire
department. Note that the mother apparently thought that
there was time for a phone call. But the heat was so
tremendous that it "was like a blast and it knocked him to the
floor." I suspect that Tym was moving down the hallway when
the living room exploded into the flashover condition, and this
is what knocked him to floor.
Once a flashover occurs, there is insufficient oxygen within
the room to sustain total combustion thruout the room. But,
the heat level within the room is so intense that all com-
bustible materials are being vaporized and are giving off
combustion gases. Thus, combustible gases, carbon monoxide
and intense heat are pumped out of the room after flashover,
and spread rapidly to other portions of the dwelling.
Temperatures can be in the range of 10000 or more The
victims are hit with hot combustible and deadly gases and are
seared about the face and body with intense heat, often with
intense pain. Their emotional level is such that they act on
instincts, not logic or training. The panic and the pain of the
fire becomes intense.
I believe it is unreal to expect occupants being subjected to
post-flashover conditions to behave in a sensible and orderly
manner. They have but seconds to escape or it is all over. I
suspect that from the time Tym was knocked over by the
flashover until he dove thru the window was probably less
than 30 seconds. But it may have seemed like an eternity.
Within this short time span as Tym dove thru the window, the
three other occupants of the dwelling were rendered
unconscious. It is interesting to note, incidentally, that the
built-in metal desk under the window in Tym's room was so
hot that he was unable to touch it, which indicates that the
heat conditions even down at the 4ft. level were becoming
most intense.
TWO SIDES TO FIRE SAFETY
There are two objectives to fire safety. One side is the
property protection side. This is the insurance industry
domain.
The other side of the coin is protecting human life. Here,
we are not dealing with insurance markets and protecting
property, we are dealing with human life.
These are two quite different matters. What is good for the
fire insurance industry is not necessarily good for life safety.
However, it is the insurance industry that first developed the
early foundations of our present fire science. Our fire
technology was developed to meet insurance company needs.
Now, we are attempting to apply this same insurance industry
brand of fire safety to protect human life. Will it work? In
fact, it will not.
There are very good reasons why our fire insurance
solutions do not work as solutions to the human life problem.
Until you lay out these reasons on the table and come to grips
with them, there will be no reduction in fire deaths.
Let us go back to the beginning of the development of the
fire insurance brand of fire safety — and see what went wrong.
WHAT IS INSURANCE?
The very first thing that you must realize about insurance is
that the fundamental objective of insurance is not to solve a
problem. Insurance is the business of making profits from
disasters. If the losses don't occur there is not need for
insurance. Insurance is a tax on a cash flow. The cash flow is
from the many who might suffer a disaster to those few who
do suffer a disaster. If there is no continuous threat of disaster,
there will be no cash flow. It's that simple.
Take life insurance, for example. An insurance company
knows how many people will die each year and how much to
charge each person to cover the expected losses. So long as
people die on schedule, everything is fine. If they stop dying,
then there's a problem. Who will buy insurance? Fortunately
for the life insurers, this doesn't happen. But there's still
another problem. Suppose everyone in Chicago drops dead
tomorrow. The combined loss is so great that the actuarial
statistics are blown. There's not enough money in reserve to
pay off for everyone who has died. This is what is called a
CATASTROPHIC LOSS. A catastrophic loss can bankrupt an
insurance system.
The same situation exists with fire insurance. The small fire
is the insurance underwriter's best friend. It puts bread on his
table. But the big fire, the great big catastrophic fire — that
puts him out of business.
2
TWO KINDS OF CATASTROPHIC LOSS
Our present theories of fire safety began to evolve a
hundred years ago. The 19th century fire insurers were being
put out of business because of two kinds of catastrophic loss.
One was the urban conflagration. Huge sprawling cities °-
combustible construction grew. And it may surprise you, bu,
the Chicago Fire, the San Francisco Fire, and the London Fire
were not isolated instances. They were simply the biggest ones
of a whole long series of urban conflagrations. There were very
few cities that didn't burn. Every conflagration left a trail of
bankrupt insurance companies.
The second type of CATASTROPHIC LOSS was the
industrial loss. The industrial revolution was producing bigger
warehouses, larger plants, higher values, and more complex fire
hazards. Maybe a single burn out of a single plant wouldn't put
the insurer out of business but it didn't take too many, and
they were burning up like hot cakes.
So the 19th century fire insurance underwriter had two big
problems he had to solve, two CATASTROPHIC FIRE
problems to solve. And, here is the tough part — he had to
solve them in such a manner as to not ruin his normal fire
insurance business. He was in the same position as the life
insurance salesman who didn't want everybody in Chicago to
drop dead tomorrow — but didn't want everybody to stop
dying either. This would be bad for business.
So summarizing, the 19th century fire insurance industry
had one great ally and one great enemy.
The ally was fire. It put bread on the underwriter's table.
The enemy was the CATASTROPHIC FIRE that
bankrupted him.
Accordingly, the early fire insurers developed a technology
of fire that guaranteed that two things would happen:
Number One — the big fire would be controlled.
Number Two — the little fire would remain a reason foi
buying insurance.
COMPARTMENTS — THE URBAN SOLUTION
Subdivision of risk is a basic tenant of insurance. If big
risks, can be divided into little risks, then the law of averages
will work. So the insurers set to work to divide the big city
into little fire risks. Codes were developed calling for clear
space between buildings. In high density areas, so called
fireproof construction was mandated. Whereas, side-by-side
frame houses had been common, new codes required that fire
walls be constructed between adjoining row houses. Big
buildings were divided into little units with fire resistive walls
and floors.
Now, notice what a beautiful solution this was from the
insurance viewpoint. Take a block of row houses for example.
A fire wall separates every unit. But the inside of every unit
remains the same. It contains plenty of combustibles and
plenty of ignition sources. The need for fire insurance is not
diminished. But only one unit burns at a time. The
catastrophic loss is avoided. The insurers had a perfect
solution, the catastrophy was avoided, and the market for
insurance remained strong.
THE SPRINKLER SYSTEM—THE
SOLUTION TO THE FACTORY FIRE
The insurers solved their urban problem quite nicely — bu'
the factory fire remained a problem. Production operation.
did not always lend themselves to small compartments. Even if
they did, the loss of one key unit in a production operation
could shut everything down. Little warehouses were not
ehicient. So, compartmentation was not an ideal solution for
the factory. Something else was needed.
In time, a special fire solution for the factory was
developed. It was the automatic sprinkler system. It detected a
small incipient fire, and put it out right away — before it got
large. The CATASTROPHIC factory fire problem was solved.
A MONSTER IS BORN
However, the sprinkler system soon proved to be so
effective, so reliable, so efficient that the insurers realized they
had another problem.
The system could be made 99.9% effective, statistics proved
it. Such truly effective fire control systems had the potential
to reduce all fire loss to near zero. Such a reduction in loss
would reduce the river of insurance premiums to near zero. A
MONSTER had been born.
When insurers recognized the problem they acted swiftly.
They formed the National Fire Protection Association, and
took over full control of the fire sprinkler system.
The fire insurers knew exactly what they were doing. They
wrote rules calling for 4, 6 and 8 inch size steel pipe, closely
spaced sprinkler heads, water supplies of enormous size and a
host of other restrictive requirements. They set up the Under-
writers Laboratory to approve and control the equipment.
They limited and controlled the number of sprinkler system
installers. They set up strict rules for insurance rating. The cost
of the system became so great that sprinkler protection
became practical only for protecting big risks.
The monster was soon controlled. It has been held in
captivity ever since. And, with the danger safely in hand, the
fire insurance industry prospered.
ONE MINOR PROBLEM
Everything was very nice on the fire insurance front. But
one little problem remained. The problem was that anybody
who just happened to be in that particular compartment that
burned — well, he burned up with the combustible contents.
You might say he was inside the furnace. But, in those days,
fire was considered an act of God, and who can blame God?
Surely not the underwriters.
THE GROWTH OF A 30 BILLION
DOLLAR A YEAR BUSINESS
The pursuit of a compartmented fireproof building with a
controlled rate of burning evolved into a multi-billion dollar
business.
In time, virtually every material used in constructing a
building had to be fire tested. They had to be tested either for
a resistance to fire damage; or for a rate and classification of
burning. The testing laboratories built their furnaces and grew
prosperous running fire tests and labeling materials.
Manufacturers who produced materials that passed the tests
became staunch defenders of the system which favored their
own products.
With the best fire control system shackled and maintained
i mpractical for more than 90% of the buildings that were
constructed, a whole group of lesser suppression and alarm
systems evolved. These too had to be tested and labeled, of
course. The manufacturers of these systems also learned to
defend a fire science that shackled the competition.
Naturally, fires continued to occur. That was the whole
idea. Each major fire that killed many people brought a new
round of demands for better human safety. So, each time, to
curb the angry crowd, new fire regulations evolved. Invariably,
they were aimed at making better compartments and corn-
3
bustibles that burned a little slower. Each time, the price of
safety went up, and the cost of "safe" construction went up,
and markets for safety products improved.
Each failure produced conditions more favorable to those
who traded in the fire safety field. Thus, the fire safety market
grew to huge proportions, representing many billions of
dollars. It is a very fertile field today. And it is all due to the
compartment theory of fire safety, because a compartment has
never yet put a fire out.
THE LIMITATIONS OF COMPARTMENTS
From a human life viewpoint, compartmentation never was
a good solution. It never will be. Here's why.
Man lives with combustibles. Most of his furnishings are
combustible. A one-family home can easily contain one to two
thousand pounds of combustibles. Yet, the burning of only
one to five pounds of this fire load can kill. It requires the
burning of only a very small fraction of the combustibles
present to kill man.
More than 90% of the fire deaths occur within the com-
partment where fire originates.
ONLY 15% OF THE COMBUSTIBLES CAN
BE REGULATED
The combustibles within a compartment can be divided
into two categories. One is interior sheathing which is subject
to fire testing and regulation. It is part of the constructed unit.
But, only 15% of the fires originate in the construction. The
great mass of fire regulations that have evolved based on fire
testing, can at best control only 15% of the human fire
problem. Think about that one! One hundred years of fire
regulating that is aimed primarily at only 15% of the human
fire problem.
The interior furnishings and contents represent 85% of the
fire problem within the compartment. It is the burning of the
furnishings that is killing man. But, there is no practical way to
prevent man from putting combustible materials in the home.
Combustibles are an essential part of man's environment. The
fire problem that is killing man is, therefore, 85% ignored by
our present fire regulations that apply to construction. Each
year, many billions of dollars are spent for fire safety by the
consumer, and most of this is oriented toward only the minor
portion of the human fire safety problem. No wonder each
year the number who die remains constant while the cost of
fire safety rises.
WHY DID DALE CADDELL DIE?
Dale Cadell, his wife Josephine, and his son Jack, 15 years
old, died for a very simple reason. They died because our fire
safety technology is structured so as to guarantee that one
compartment size fires will continue to exist. It is structured
so as to guarantee that the fire sprinkler system is maintained
unavailable to solve the small fire problem. A dwelling, you
see, is a single compartment, firewise. Jack Caddell and 8,000
others like him, including 4,000 children, are condemned each
year because the fire codes are structured so as to guarantee a
high burn rate in America.
THE SOLUTIONS
There are true solutions to the human life problem. Fire
deaths from building fires can be reduced by better than 90%.
The first step is to develop a sprinkler system that will be
practical for a one-family dwelling and mobil home. To do this
we must produce an unusually effective system because the
average home has a water supply of only 10 to 20 GPM.
 When we produce this extremely efficient system we will
have opened the door much wider to low-cost, effective
systems that will be practical for every type of building.
The second thing we must do is put together a coalition of
the most influential and progressive fire safety individuals and
organizations in the United States in support of this program.
We will, of course, gain the most support from those
individuals and organizations that do not have profits directly
tied to the existing regulations.
The third thing we must do is to prepare a definition of
"untenable conditions" from both the heat and toxic smoke
viewpoint, and set this as a criteria for life safety systems. This
will allow a direct scientific evaluation of the compart-
mentation plan and the fire suppression plan. We plan cost —
effectiveness study for — THE LIFE SAFETY SPRINKLER
SYSTEM vs. COMPARTMENTATION
The fourth thing we must do is begin to shift fire safety
control away from the special interest NFPA combine to
public control. The recently created Federal agency, The
National Fire Prevention and Control Administration is a more
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proper entity to oversee the preparation of fire prevention
standards.
Another very essential step is to "phase out" the NFPA
Standard-101, which is a disjointed and incomplete building
code that promotes compartments as the "solution" to fire
(and in the process preserves fire as a problem). The three
independent code organizations ("Basic", "Uniform" and
"Standard" Building Codes) are professionally staffed and
properly oriented to produce proper model building codes.
These independent model code agencies undoubtedly would
shift more strongly toward built-in automatic fire suppression
systems to control fire, and protect life within the com-
partment, if it were not for the strong negative effect of the
powerful NFPA-101 code.
The final thing we must do is bring the consumer into the
fire code field, so that there will be at least as many consumers
on fire code committees as there are those who make profits.
Those who pay for the fire protection systems (and die in the
fires) must have at least the strength of those who make
profits when codes are written.
These solutions will take time — but why not start now?