THE PATTON REPORT
0 1970 Patton Fire Protection & Research, Inc.
A Fire Protection Publication
Consulting Surveys
No. 12
FIRE SAFETY FOR THE HIGH RISE BUILDING
The recent fire in the high rise office building at One New
York Plaza in New York City has once again
demonstrated two things:
1 - Existing building codes do not define a satisfactory
level of fire safety for the occupants of high rise
buildings, or for the men who must fight the fires.
2 - The codes are a reflection of an obsolete fire
protection technology. In order to improve the
codes it is first necessary to develope new concepts
of fire protection.
The problem of fire in a high rise building appears to be
tremendously complex. Most floors are far above the
reach of fire department aerial ladders. Gaining access to
the fire is extremely difficult. A fifty or sixty story
stairway is close to an impossible exit for occupants.
Elevators are unsafe under fire conditions. The fire
resistant structure is a heat trap. Fixed sash creates
ventilation problems. Falling glass is a hazard to those in
the street below. Combustibles that produce highly toxic
gases are deadly to trapped occupants and fire fighters.
The high rise building, to say the least, has potential for
very serious fire with large loss of life.
The problems appear to be insurmountable. They are not!
Good solutions, almost invaribly, are very simple
solutions. There are very simple, and very good solutions
to this problem just as there are to most technical
problems.
If there are good, easy to apply, solutions to the problem,
then why aren't they applied? The answer is that there is a
major road block in the way of sensible solutions. The
road block is traditional fire protection.
If we could wipe the slate perfectly clean and start again
from scratch, if we could forget everything that went
before, and be free to develope new concepts of fire
protection for the new buildings, then the solutions would
not be so difficult to arrive at. Solutions are difficult to
find only when our vision becomes blurred by the ghosts
of yesteryear. Grandfather, to put it mildly, is messing up
our designs.
The traditional solutions to fire, developed for buildings
of oh-so-long-ago, are still in the rule books and the codes,
and there is no room for something new because of the
clutter of the old.
Fire protection must be economically practical. There is
no point in moralizing about this because moralizing
doesn't save lives. Practical solutions save lives.
If money is spent wastefully for nonessential fire
protection there will be little left for sensible fire
protection. New solutions are not practical until old, no
longer pertinent solutions, are eliminated.
Research
I propose the following.
AUTOMATIC FIRE SUPPRESSION
There are two ways to put a fire out. One way is with
built-in equipment. The other is with manpower. But the
high rise building as presently designed is an impossible
challenge to the human fire control system. The chemistry
of fire is such that it can get out of hand rapidly if there is
no built-in suppression system. How do you gain access to
a totally involved floor hundreds of feet above the street?
The answer is you do it by doing the impossible. But why
ask the impossible of the fire services when there is no
need to do so? An automatic fire suppression system
is the best solution, the most economically practical
solution, the only sensible solution.
Why isn't automatic fire suppression employed? There are
two reasons.
A. Cost: The automatic fire suppression system
(currently referred to as the sprinkler system) has
been made unnecessarily costly thru a method of
design-by-regulations developed by Grandfather
as a substitute for engineering.
B. Reliability: These out of date design regulations
also produce an element of unreliability in the
system. The regulations virtually prohibit the
application of engineering or sensible design
principals to sprinkler design. The regulations
violate fundamental laws of science.
Therefore, there is economic resistance to the sprinkler
system on the part of the designers and the building
owners; and there is also a reluctance on the part of the
authorities to rely on the sprinkler system as a substitute
for some of the structural fire protection requirements
because of routine faulty system design methods.
The first step in high rise safety is an economically
practical and very highly reliable built-in fire suppression
system. This system should be installed ON A ' TRADE
OFF BASIS. If built-in fire suppression can be made more
economical, and can be made more reliable, then there is
more than enough extraneous fire protection in building
design to pay for it.
EXITS
The prevailing fire protection concept of exitways for
skyscrapers couldn't be worse. The curtia official fire
protection policy is that in event of fire the stairways
should be used for evacuation, and not the elevators.
Anyone who has ever ridden on a elevator and also walked
down a fifty floor stairway can tell you that the opposite
should be the case.
Aside from the problem of cardiac failure, studies have
SMOKE
Because of built-in fire resistance fire is usually confined
to one floor of a high rise building. But smoke has a habit
of spreading. Elevators rising and falling in shafts can act
as smoke pumps. Air conditioning systems can spread
smoke. Fire converts solids to gases and the increase in
volume creates a pressure to drive smoke thru small
openings. Fixed sash compounds the problem.
There is a practical way to solve this problem:
A . Keep the fire small. Control it quickly. This
prevents the creation of large quantities of
smoke. This requires a good system of
suppression.
B - Install product of combustion detectors in the
return air ducts. Upon operation of the detectors
there should be 100% spill of return air to the
outdoors. Operate the ventilation system as a
smoke removal system. Incidently, if the dilution
factor is such that the P. C. detector is not
operated then there is no problem. There is a
trade off for this system also. Most fusible link
fire dampers can be eliminated.
C - As a final solution it may be necessary to mount
a blower at the top of each bank of elevators. The
blower would be arranged to operated upon
automatic detection of fire (suppression system
operates). A slight pressuring of the shafts with
fresh air will prevent smoke from entering and
being distributed by the pumping action of the
traveling cars.
COMBUSTIBILITY OF CONTENTS
Highly combustible and highly toxic materials have no
place in the high rise building.
After the real bad actors are eliminated, an evaluation of
the vast bulk of the contents, trim, paneling, and finishes
will reveal two things:
A. There is more than enough combustibles in a
modern high rise building to be a serious threat to
human life.
B. There is no practical way of reducing
combustibles to the point where a serious fire is
not possible. Efforts aimed at solving the fire
problem thru severe restrictions on materials of a
combustible nature will only be self-defeating.
The more practical solution is reasonable regulations that
will eliminate HIGHLY combustible and HIGHLY toxic
materials, plus excellent methods of fire prevention and
suppression.
FIRE SUPPRESSION
Fire proofing requirements for the steel, enclosures for
the stairways, improvements in the elevators, controls for
the prevention of spread of smoke - these are all periphery
solutions to fire.
There are only two REAL solutions to fire. They are:
1. Prevent it.
2. Put it out.
There are code specified ways to prevent a fire. Properly
designed electric wiring is one. Built-in fire prevention is
very important. But the human fire hazard cannot be fully
controlled. People can cause fires in the best designed
buildings. Built-in fire prevention features will not
produce a zero fire experience.
Therefore, combined with an achievable degree fire
prevention, a system of near absolute fire suppression is
the key to true fire safety.
A built-in automatic mechanical fire suppression system is
a giant step toward absolute fire control.
A fire suppression system can also be an automatic fire
detection and alarm system. It is an easy matter to
electrically connect the suppression system to the fire
department. Thus, there will be a rapid response by the
fire department to supplement the mechanical control
system. This ONE-TWO combination is ALMOST fool
proof - but not quite. A well designed and well maintained
system of mechanical suppression will rarely fail, but it
can happen. If the mechanical system fails there may be a
failure of the alarm feature intended to alert the fire
department. This can represent a total wipe out of the
affective early control measures.
The amateur fire fighter - the employee, the watchman,
the visitor - generally is a POOR fire fighter. He is
INEXPERIENCED and HE MAKES MISTAKES. HE
FAILS TO PUT THE FIRE OUT, and HE FAILS TO
CALL THE FIRE DEPARTMENT.
In spite of these short comings it is an easy matter to
make him a very effective fire fighter and also a prompt
summoner of the fire department. It MAKES SENSE TO
DO THIS.
In order to put out a good sized fire . something that is
considerably more than a waste paper basket fire - an
effective fire fighting tool is needed. A 3 /4 or I" light
weight flexible hose equipped with a spray nozzle is an
amazingly effective fire control weapon. Five to ten
gallons of water per minute delivered to a fire in the form
of a spray during the fairly early stages will wipe it out
with dispatch. Everyone knows how to use a small hose.
The spray absorbes the heat that normally drives the
amateur away. Armed with the right kind of fire fighting
tool the amateur can be an EXCELLENT fire fighter.
Water spray is also an approved tool for electrical fires.
The fire extinguisher we normally give the amateur allows
him fifty seconds of fire fighting with a STRAIGHT
STREAM. This is TOO LITTLE WATER,
INCORRECTLY USED. Besides, a fire extinguisher
confuses people. They don't normally use one every
weekend watering the shrubbery.
The solution is to give the amateur something he
understands, that he can handle easily, and that will do an
EFFECTIVE job on the fire. Give him a large "garden
type" reinforced nylon hose with spray nozzle. Then wire
the hose (the standpipe) to the fire department just as the
mechanical suppression system is wired to the fire
department.
shown that stairways do not have the carrying capacity
needed for high rise buildings. The exit codes prescribe
the same number of stairways for two story buildings as
for a 102 story building.
To be sure there is no doubt about the fact that
stairways are the official exitways and elevators are not,
the elevators are designed to do you in if you try to argue
otherwise. If you are exiting from a floor above the fire
floor, and if someone on the involved floor has pushed the
down button, which is not unlikely, your elevator will
stop at the involved floor. The doors will open. If there is
smoke the electric eye (that prevents the door from
closing on people) will be obscured and the doors will
remain open. This will leave both you and the fellow who
pushed the button in a very bad situation. The same
danger can confront a fireman who mistakenly rides an
elevator to the involved floor rather than to the floor
directly below the fire.
A new approach to exit from high rise buildings is needed
with elevators made safe and stairways downgraded and
reduced in number. The following solution is
recommended.
A - Divide each floor into two fire zones with a two
hour partition.
B - Lay out corridors so that there are two or more
ways to pass from one side of the floor thru the
fire partition to the other side.
C - Protect each opening in the partition with a pair
of fire doors that are normally in the open
position and so arranged (with magnetic door
releases operated by product of combustion
detectors) that they will close automatically in
event of smoke detection.
The doors thru the fire partition will be
HORIZONTAL EXITS. The fire division wall on
each floor can be fitted to the needs of that floor
and can be incorporated in the planned
partitioning layout. In most instances extra
partitioning will not be needed. There is no need
to have the partitioning layout on every floor
coincide.
D - Install passenger elevators in once section, at least
two freight elevators in the other. Install one
stairway in each section near the elevators. The
fire partition must separate the two banks of
elevators on each floor but this is the only
restriction on its location.
E - If the ground floor lobby is kept free of
combustibles and also is sprinklered, permit all
stairways and elevators to discharge into the
lobby, if desired.
Note that this solution probably represents the
elimination of at least two stairways and it may
not require any additional elevators.
This arrangement of exits combined with a fire
suppression system will accomplish the following:
A . Provide horizontal exits from the fire zone to the
safety zone where there will be ample time for
evacuation under non panic conditions. The two
hour rating will exceed the fire loading of the
occupancy so fire penetration, even after two
hours, will be most unlikely. (This will hold even
in the extremely unlikely event that no fire
control measures are employed.)
B - Provide at least one safe elevator for evacuation
of occupants and at least one safe elevator for fire
department use.
C - It will give the fire department a fire free zone on
the involved floor from which to attack the fire.
D - The fire suppression system combined with a
prompt au tomatic response by the fire
department will virtually guarantee that the fire
will be attacked when small and will be promptly
controlled.
There are two additional safe guards that are needed in
connection with the elevators. Provide a product of
combustion detector on each floor at each elevator bank
and program the elevators to NOT STOP at a floor where
smoke has operated the detector. Elevators that pass thru
the involved side of the floor (where the fire is) will not
stop at the involved floor. Elevators passing thru the fire
free zone will stop at all floors. This will protect persons
on upper floors who ride the elevator thru the involved
area between the time the fire is initiated until the fire
department arrives and takes the exposed elevators out of
service (if they have to be taken out of service.)
Also, raise the floor slightly at the elevator banks to
prevent water entering the shafts and shorting car
controls. Arrange the stairways to pass water downward
without wetting every floor below.
The savings available in reducing the number of stairways
(also represents space gain) can be applied toward the cost
of the improved elevator controls. There usually will be
little additional cost for a two hour fire wall built into the
partitioning layout.
FIRE PROOFING
It is essential that the steel in skyscrapers be protected
from excessive heat even in sprifiklered buildings.
However, the fire resistance in hours required by most
codes exceeds the fire loading. With full sprinkler
protection it is recommended that fire resistance for
office and apartment buildings be reduced to not over two
hours provided the sprinkler system is directly connected
to a paid fire department not more than 15 minutes
running time away.
Further, it is recommended that in the sprinklered
building fire resistance requirements for corridor and
room partitioning be eliminated; but the partitions should
be noncombustible (with some exceptions). This would
not apply to the fire wall dividing each floor into two
sections, of course.
A realistically fire proofed building combined with an
automatic fire suppression system is an infinitely better
solution than just an OVER FIRE PROOFED building.
This combination of suppression systems; the mechanical
system, the amateur, and the professional fire fighter, will
provide a reliability of fire control that is very close to
absolute fire safety.
SUMMARY
The present plan for fire safety for the high rise building
relies most heavily on containment and traditional
exitways.
By using "fire proofed"floors, and "fire proofed"
enclosures around each vertical shaft, the fire is hopefully
confined to one floor. Occupants presumably can escape
down the enclosed stairways, and these stairways can be
used by the fire department to gain access to the fire.
This plan is a dangerous one, however. There is NO
BARRIER TO TOTAL INVOLVEMENT OF AN ENTIRE
FLOOR OF A SKYSCRAPER. It can be most difficult to
bring the fire under control by manual means once the
fire has become extensive. Smoke and toxic gases, which
are the real killers, often escape the confines of the floor.
There is a serious potential for trapping and killing many
occupants at and above the floor that is on fire.
There is a need for a strong shift toward fire suppression.
The use of fire resistant construction for fire containment
cannot be discarded, but there is much "fat" that can be
trimmed with the savings applied to the cost of the
suppression systems.
There is a need to recognize that elevators, not stairways,
are the pathways of the high rise building.
There is a need for better smoke control.
There is a need for horizontal exits to a secure area for the
occupants so that there will be adequate time for non
panic evacuation, and there is a need for a secure base to
initiate manual fire control measures.
All of the needs can be provided, and the high rise
building can become an extremely fire safe structure; and
all these things can be done WITHOUT added costs or
inconveniences. In fact, the design contemplated may well
have a net reduction in total cost, and will certainly give
the architect a GREATER freedom of design.
Richard M. Patton, President
PATTON FIRE PROTECTION & RESEARCH, INC.
647 Colts Neck Road
Freehold, New Jersey 07728