Which Fire Kills:

The Hot ot The $moldering?

Richard M. Patton

Cordon H. Damant, Director of the
California Bureau of Home Furnish-
ings, in my opinion is the No.1 expert
in the U.S. for the flammability of home
furnishings. The Bureau of Home
Furnishings researches and fire tests
furniture and other furnishings sold to
homes and businesses in California.
Researchers there have conducted hun-
dreds of live test burns of chairs, sofas,
bedding, and so forth, involving both
flaming and smoldering fires.
The False ldeas That Initiated
The Smoke lletector Graze
Back in the 1960s the smoke detector
industry made four claims abouat fire
and the smoke detectors ihat helped
this industry "capture the home mar-
ket" for their devices. They were:
1. That 75% of all fires began as smol-
dering fires and that the smoldering
fire was the most deadly type of fire
because "smoke kills."
2.That the smoldering fire would kill
prior to a heat detector or sprinkler
head operating.
were passing on honest information to
the public, and promoting an honest
fire code (NFPA-74).
Lets Look At The Facts
The Bureau of Home Furnishings re-
leased a study of cigarette ignition of
upholstered furniture. The report in-
cluded an analysis of smoldering fires
in 15 upholstered chairs. Information
contained within this report included
the following:
1. Fires initiated with smoking materi-
als account for 27% of the fire deaths
(not 75%). About half of these deaths
involved upholstered furniture.
2. Fifteen chairs were ignited for the
tests: 5 self extinguished, one was ex-
tinguished with water after 5 hours
and 30 minutes of smoldering and 9 chairs or by the flaming fires kill? The
led to open flaming.
3. With the chairs that smoldered to
self extinguishment, the average time
to "self extinguishment" exceeded 3
1/2hours.
r l
4. With the 9 chairs that eventually
proceed to flaming, the average time
to flaming was 2 hours, 36 minutes. No
chair reached flaming in less than 60
minutes.
If it is true that the smoldering fire will
kill before a heat detector will operate,
then those six chairs that smoldered
but never produced flames should
have produced lethal environments.
Did they? Lets look at the results from
the Bureau of Home Furnishings test.
Table 1 below shows that the chairs
that became flaming fires produced a
maximum CO level more than 70 times
higher than the smoldering fires.
Garbon ilonoxide As A Killer
Would the carbon monoxide concen-
tration produced by the smoldering
NFPA "Fire Protection Handbook"
says that the danger of CO is a function
of both concentration and time. The
longer the exposure, the lower the con,
centration necessary to disable or kill.

3. That the smoke detectorwould de- Table l: Toxicity flnalysis - $moldering Fire vs. Flaming Fire
tect the smoldering fire instantane-
ously, before the smoke even became
Based on data extracted From the Calirornia Bureau of Home Furnishings
visible.
report Flaming Combustion of upholstered Furniture Ignitied by smoldering
Cigarette by McCormack, Damant, Williams and Mikami
4.That invisible ions, produced by the
early smoldering fire, would spread
Levels of Carbon Monoxide Produced by Category of Burning
uniformly, finding the detector even (ppm=parts per million)
when it was distant from the fire
location.Thus one or two smoke de-
A. Smoldering Fire: Maximum CO Produced, ppm = 125
tectors could protect an entire home.
Six chairs smoldered for an average time of 3,5 hours, one
chair smoldered for 5.5 hours. Flaming did not occur.
With such claims, plus the support of
the National Fire Protection Associa-
tion, soon virtually every fire chief in
B. Flaming Fire : Maximum CO Produced, pp* = 8,875
Nine chairs produced flaming fires after smoldering,
the United States became a "smoke
on the average,2 hours and36 minutes.
detector salesman." They believed they
 Very high concentrations can disable
or kill rapidly.
The NFPA handbook provides a simple
"rule of thumb:" when the concentia-
tion (ppm) multiplied by minutes of
exposure exceeds 35,000, the exposure
"is likely to be dangerous." Using this
rule, we can determine the time re-
quired for the CO levels listed in Table
1 to become "dangerous to life." See
Table 2.
The flaming fires had the potential to
endanger within four minutes. The
smoldering fires produced a CO level
thai had the potential to endanger life
within a 4 to 5 hour exposure, using
the NFPA "rule of thumb." (Note:
There are many studies of "Killing
time" vs concentration of CO, and con-
siderable variations are given. The im-
portant thinghere is the very wide dis-
parity in CO leveis produced by the
flaming vs the smoldering fire.)
Does the above mean that a flaming
fire will require four minutes to kill?
Not at all. As flaming fires go, these
actuaily wete aery small. In a real
home fire, combustion products pro-
duced by a flaming fire will sometimes
drop a l-realtl-ry man within 15 seconds.
Does the above data indicate that the
smoldering fire will killin4 to 5 hours?
No. It took almost 4 hours of smolder-
ing before the Co reached the level that
would endanger life urith a 4 to 5 hour
exposure. In short, it takes an extremely
long exposure to a cigarette caused
smoldering fire to endanger life unless
the fire turns flaming.
Mr. Damant states "I have never seen
a smoldering fire produce life threat-
ening conditions while it was in the
smoldering stage "
Gonclusions
The data contained in the California
study was not news to me. It was
merely one additional study thattends
to confirm those positions I took more
than 15 years ago relative to the false
claims put out by the smoke detector
Table 2:
Permissible Exposurc Time
to Fires llescribed ln Table I
7. Six Smoldering Fires
35,000 / 125= 280 minutes
(4.6 hours)
2. Nine Fires Turned Flaming
*,00018,875= 3.9 minutes
i ]
industry. My views then, and today,
are as follows:
1. The smoldering fire very rarely
produces a toxic level that will kill,
except when it changes to a flaming
fire.Less that 1% of all fire denths occur os
the result of a smoldering (only) fire.
2. A flaming t'ire is by far the more deadly
t'ire, and accounts for 99% and more, of the
fire deaths. A flaming will kill because:
a) It can produce ioxic gases at
rates 1000 to 10,000 times the rate that
a smoldering fire will produce toxic
gases.
b)
The combustion products a
"hot" canspread so rapidly that it can
trap and kill bet'ore escape is possible.
which detects the
3. The heat detector,
hot flaming fire must be the pret'erred
detector within the home for these
ICASONS:
a) Before fire becomes deadly,
virtually without exception, it pro-
duces heat.
b) The heat detectoris extremely
reliable, not subject to false alarming.
c) Contrary to popular opinion,
the smoke detector usually does not
respond quickly to a smoldering fire.
Often a smoke detector does not detect
a fire until it becomes flaming or very
close to flaming (transition stage).
d) The smoke detector, when
not in room where the fire is located,
will often nof alarm until the fire is not
only flaming but to the life-threaten-
ing stage.
e) The inexpensive smoke de-
tector usually installed has a very short
life until its sensitivity'wanders, either
becoming false alarm prone or inade-
quately sensitive. Therefore, it too of-
ten represents either a nuisance or a
false sense of security.
The heat detector must be in eaery
room of the home because it is the
MOST RELIABLE detector of the hot
fire, zuhich is the fire that is re sp onsible
for 99% of the deaths.
The primary reason why the smoke
detector had been "preferred" (in spite
of its erratic behavior and high failure
rate) was because the fire chiefs be-
lieved the claims put outby the smoke
detector industry. These claims, as
earlier stated, are not true. When the
truth is plugged into the evaluations,
the logic changes.
First, r eliabl e detectors must be installed
throughout the home to protect against
the dangerous hot fire. Secondly, smoke
detectors are also desirable as a pos-
sible detector of a smoldering fire De-
fore it becomes flaming. This is very
"iffy," but worth the additional few
dollars of cost. The smoke detector
must be installed in the room where
the smoldering fire is expected in order
to have a good chance at detecting a
fire before it becomes flaming.
Protect the home with a complete lay-
out of the reliable heat detectors. In-
stall smoke detectors for extra protec-
tion. Install a garden hose assigned for
fire control purposes only.
Do these things and probably 907o of
the risk of being killed by fire will be
eliminated. Or, install a fire sprinkler
system throughout the home-this is
close to 100% safety.
Those are the recommendations of the
Crusade Against Fire Deaths.
P. O. Box 196
citrus Heights, cA 95611-0196