Smoke management is a term used to describe the methods implemented to passively or actively control the movement of smoke within the built environment in the interest of providing safety to occupants, fire fighters and property. Smoke management methods include compartmentation, dilution, pressurization, airflow and buoyancy.

The following is a brief description of the different methods that are currently considered when designing smoke management systems. These systems can be implemented individually or in conjunction with one another. Read more →

“Stop, drop, and roll” is a fire safety mantra that has probably been drilled into your head since elementary school. While that is great advice with some truth to it, fire safety is a bit more complicated than those three simple actions. Fire safety is more than just what you do in the moment, and it requires prior planning and prevention measures, especially when you live in an apartment. According to the American Red Cross, once a fire has been detected by a smoke detector, an apartment resident has two minutes or less to safely escape.

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A tank burns as fire breaks out at a refinery in Crockett, Calif., on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2019. A fire burning at an oil storage facility in the San Francisco Bay Area prompted a hazardous materials emergency that led authorities to order the residents of two communities to shelter in place and stay inside with all windows and doors closed. Contra Costa Fire Department spokesman Steve Hill said that an hour into battling the blaze, firefighters seemed to be making progress and were continuing to keep adjacent tanks cooled with water. (Anda Chu/San Jose Mercury News via AP)

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An industrial fire is a type of industrial disaster involving a conflagration which occurs in an industrial setting. Industrial fires often, but not always, occur together with explosions. They are most likely to occur in facilities where there is a lot of flammable material present.

Such material can include petroleum, petroleum products such as petrochemicals, or natural gas. Processing flammable materials such as hydrocarbons in units at high temperature and/or high pressure makes the hazards more severe. Facilities with such combustible material include oil refineries, tank farms, natural gas processing plants, and chemical plants, particularly petrochemical plants. Such facilities often have their own fire departments for firefighting. Sometimes large amounts of dust or powder are vulnerable to combustion and their ignition can cause dust explosions.

Recently an article, Construction Concerns: IBC 2021 Heavy Timber Proposal[1] , appeared in Fire Engineering that raised concerns regarding the now newly passed “Tall Mass Timber” code additions to the International Building Code (IBC) 2021 Edition. The article briefly outlined some of the central code changes that will permit tall mass timber buildings.

A brief examination of all the Tall Mass Timber (TMT) code provisions that will be included in the 2021 International Building Code (IBC) will demonstrate that the fire safety protection required by the new code changes provides for the life safety of occupants and firefighters that will respond to emergencies in these buildings. Read more →