5 Alarm Fire during construction of large wood frame apartment
5 Alarm Fire during construction of large wood frame apartment
(OP)
Commercial building and fire codes are certainly not my forte. I have been watching this structure go up. https://www.google.com/maps/@35.9126753,-79.057106...
While the above building is only 4 stories tall, this past Friday a taller similar construction large wooden apartment building under construction caught fire and turned into what is described as the most disastrous fire in the city in the last 100 years.. 10 nearby buildings damaged, 5 severely. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlHP8pOiOtY
Local TV news... http://abc13.com/news/huge-five-alarm-fire-burns-i... photo of portion of building before fire.
News Conference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gxfvjUVjVI fairly good detailed questions at 4:30 minutes into video on many topics including the "stick built controversy across the country"
I guess once the building is firewalled off with sheetrock and sprinkler systems installed, it's OK. High rise concrete/steel structures have their limits, in that typically if the fire isn't brought under control within 2 hours, even structural steel starts to fail.
While the above building is only 4 stories tall, this past Friday a taller similar construction large wooden apartment building under construction caught fire and turned into what is described as the most disastrous fire in the city in the last 100 years.. 10 nearby buildings damaged, 5 severely. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlHP8pOiOtY
Local TV news... http://abc13.com/news/huge-five-alarm-fire-burns-i... photo of portion of building before fire.
News Conference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gxfvjUVjVI fairly good detailed questions at 4:30 minutes into video on many topics including the "stick built controversy across the country"
I guess once the building is firewalled off with sheetrock and sprinkler systems installed, it's OK. High rise concrete/steel structures have their limits, in that typically if the fire isn't brought under control within 2 hours, even structural steel starts to fail.





RE: 5 Alarm Fire during construction of large wood frame apartment
Dik
RE: 5 Alarm Fire during construction of large wood frame apartment
The wood industry is pushing the design limits higher as mentioned regarding Norway, and I have seen one or two articles on wood magazines fostering the idea too with specially engineered wood products.
Time will tell, as it has with other changes, as to whether or not the change is good.
Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)
RE: 5 Alarm Fire during construction of large wood frame apartment
The reality is that wooden building, while they are not fire-proof, are considered fire-resistant to a certain extent. Before a wooden building will collapse due to fire, the fire must first burn through a certain portion of the wooden framework before the structural integrity of the building is compromised. With a fabricated steel building of the same size and volume, while it may be seen as fire-proof, it may not be considered as fire-resistant as was the wooden building, since it will collapse catastrophically once critical load-bearing members reach a temperature where they cam no longer support the load on them.
I once heard a fireman being interviewed where he stated that he would much rather be fighting a fire inside a wooden building than a fabricated steel building, since at least with the wooden building, there will be warning signs that the building is starting to collapse whereas with the steel building, one moment it will look just fine and the next it will be a pile of twisted steel.
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: 5 Alarm Fire during construction of large wood frame apartment
Dik
RE: 5 Alarm Fire during construction of large wood frame apartment
RE: 5 Alarm Fire during construction of large wood frame apartment
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: 5 Alarm Fire during construction of large wood frame apartment
What struck me as odd was the firewalls between units.
Here in SoFla, the firewalls would be made of concrete or CMU, extending a couple of feet above the roofline.
There in NY, the firewalls were of similar geometry, but frame construction, just ordinary fir lumber, sheathed with some kind of green board.
I didn't look closely enough to see if there were firebreaks of any kind within the firewalls, but they still looked like chimneys to me.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: 5 Alarm Fire during construction of large wood frame apartment
Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: 5 Alarm Fire during construction of large wood frame apartment
B.E.
You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.
RE: 5 Alarm Fire during construction of large wood frame apartment
Green board... could it have been cement board, like Durock? That stuff supposedly has a 2-hour fire rating when installed in a particular fashion...
Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: 5 Alarm Fire during construction of large wood frame apartment
This used to be the norm down any Main Street in America. And it's not just California as one of my son's restaurants (not his personally just one of nearly 60 that he's responsible for in his role where he works) that we attended the grand opening for in Austin, TX, was part of a new shopping complex where this was how business and residential units were arranged. In fact, from what I've seen when encountering new commercial complexes like this it, that they often are done in a manner that tries to convey that sort of 'Main Street' feeling.
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: 5 Alarm Fire during construction of large wood frame apartment
Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)
RE: 5 Alarm Fire during construction of large wood frame apartment
... but still, it seems dishonest to build something that _looks_like_ a firewall out of wood.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: 5 Alarm Fire during construction of large wood frame apartment
RE: 5 Alarm Fire during construction of large wood frame apartment
RE: 5 Alarm Fire during construction of large wood frame apartment
The LAFD spokesman said “There were no dividing firewalls between the different components of it. So we had five stories of a wood frame without any type of fire protection,”
There are many incredible pictures of the fire, easily found. Here's one:
RE: 5 Alarm Fire during construction of large wood frame apartment
Indeed cs!
As kid I lived in LA briefly and one night, Thanksgiving I think, the three story apartment directly across the street went up. It was about 400 feet long and a 100 feet deep and the entire thing got going at one point. I believe it was a 7-alarm fire. That was one spectacular show for me, a little kid. Luckily for us across the street, (certainly not the poor occupants), it was a fully constructed place so there was never the shear mass of radiant thermal energy that an open framed under-construction place would've produced.
Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: 5 Alarm Fire during construction of large wood frame apartment
I guess the use of "hot work permits" and independant fire watches for private construction is to expensive. so the cost of an apartment complex loss that size (and the probability of loss of lives) doesn't justify the cost of a fire prevention program (and someone to enforce it)
Not by code or law, but by pure econimics and common sense
RE: 5 Alarm Fire during construction of large wood frame apartment
RE: 5 Alarm Fire during construction of large wood frame apartment
B.E.
You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.
RE: 5 Alarm Fire during construction of large wood frame apartment
The helper with that squirt bottle, and making plumbers take out hot-work permits and the relevant precautionary measures that go along with them, would cost something. Fire? "it'll never happen here" ... Oops.
RE: 5 Alarm Fire during construction of large wood frame apartment
B.E.
You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.