Fires kill thousands every year

Is your family save? Are you sure? Is that your final answer? Does their school or your business have stairs and exits blocked with stored items? Are doors locked or chained shut or exit ways gated on the outside? Is your home designed with safe geometry and the furnishings organized to provide more time to escape?

These questions are critical when seconds count to get out of a burning building safely. The presence of poisonous gas, collapsing structure or increased temperature because of  low ceilings may trap and kill people. Carbon monoxide may disable, burning plastic may blind, decorations or light fixtures may melt and drip fire.

Even minor fires in large public buildings have raced out of control killing and hurting hundreds, like the MGM fire in Las Vegas. Many of the victims didn't know there was a fire. When they found out, they faced thick black poisonous smoke, blocked stairways, collapsing exits and fire balls racing through large rooms at 16 feet per second that reached 2000 degrees. 

The design of a building plays a key role in fire-safety. Has your building been designed  and maintained to maximize your chances of survival? Architects are trained and licensed to think about ways to help prevent fire, and if fire should occur, increase your chances of survival.

Most people don't understand the complexity of fire-safety and the need for prevention from the very beginning and throughout a project. The added cost and time pays dividends like a savings account. The small percentage of increased cost at MGM would have prevented death and destruction, loss of revenue, and hundreds of millions of dollars in legal costs.

One of the things architects are trained to do is analyze products and certified tests for flame-spread ratings and toxicity. This tells them how fast a fire on a product will spread, how much smoke will be generated, and what toxic gases may be emitted. This is of critical importance to you and your family since most people die in fires from lethal combinations of gases in smoke even before they see the fire.

Ceiling heights are important and so are length to width ratios of rooms to give occupants precious extra time to get out of a fire. Other things that contribute to this are the placement of fuel loads that feed fires like couches, chairs, and bookshelves. Your chances of escaping a fire depend on how fast flames spread along combustible surfaces.

The selection of structural members and connection details help keep the structure intact while occupants get out of the building. Steel expands and bends and can push out walls, wood ignites quickly, concrete spalls and explodes. These properties must be taken into account to prevent injuries and death.

A complex building code is a set of minimum requirements and spells out such things as exit corridor width, emergency lighting, door and window openings and sizes. These should be exceeded whenever possible to achieve a safer building for the occupants.

Architects can also guide you about proper design outside to allow speedy access to fire trucks. Every second counts for occupants when a fire starts. Critical analysis accommodates the needs of the handi-capped which also makes the building safer for everyone.

Together we can:
Provide you with a safer building by concentrating on fire-safety at the beginning and throughout the design process.

See the director's contact page or e-mail jb@redfly.com.