My two cents added to your two cents may equal no sense at all.

It will probably be a great shock and surprise to many of you that the concepts behind the initial push for NFPA 921 back in 1995 and before, was not new in theory or use. To my personal knowledge it was in use at least 40 years prior in 1953.

As a young fire captain I spent a month in training with a regional investigator for the California Division of Forestry, as it was known at that time. During this period I had the pleasure of editing a draft manuscript for a book that he, Stewart M. Schick and a Superior Court Judge, A. K. Wylie, were writing entitled “A Study of Fire Liability Law” published in 1957.

Schick’s philosophy on investigations was that when you had gathered all of the available facts about the origin and cause of the fire you noted them down on paper. Once you were comfortable with what you had done and the conclusions you came up with he had you take a fifteen minute break. Nowdays it would be coffee, but that was not the case back then. After you had taken your break he had you go back over each and every fact that you noted with the purpose of disproving them or your conclusions based on them and looking for other explanations of the facts you obtained. Once you did this and you could not disprove or mitigate the facts you gathered and the conclusions you came up with, then you had a viable origin and cause, but not until then. If you could not validate them he had you had to go back and re-investigate those items to determine what was valid or what was not and why. If you did not account for all discrepancies then he had you start all over again.

This was 1953; sound familiar?

Another thing, as long as I am in the mood to write, let’s discuss the use of “Old wives tales”.
There is nothing wrong with an old wives tale as most were as accurate in their day as many of the new techniques are that we use today. It is how they were applied that causes the problem.

Some examples I see is the one of spalling in concrete. Most of us understand how this comes about, but concrete poured in a warehouse in 1930 had a composition that was much different than that poured in 1950, 1980, 2000 and 2006. The development of concrete has come a long way in composition, strength, moisture content, curing times, expansion and contraction, etc. consequently, if we take an old wives tale that might have been true in spalling occurring in 1950 to concrete poured in 1930 and try to apply it to concrete poured in 2004 we are not talking about the same product. By its very nature it is going to react differently to an identical heat source.

Another example involves patterns on floors. I can remember the first wood floor we had was 2"x8" planks on wood joists two feet apart. The floor breathed, as my bare feet could tell. Then came a plank sub-floor where we had two layers of wood at different angles. They did not breath as much, but my feet still told me that they did. Then came linoleum that we placed on top. The floor did not breath then but it was still cold. So we added wool carpets, that was great. Now we have added plywood or particle board as a sub floor and wood, vinyl, man-made carpet or tile on the surface. Now we can have different floor coverings in different rooms. We have vinyl over plywood in the bathroom now, but my first bathroom floor was wood plank in an outhouse.
What I am trying to say is that as construction methods change and building materials change, along with the change in the make up of building contents, they are going to react differently to identical heat sources. They are going to contribute combustible gases in different amounts and in different time frames and this will affect fire spread and the patterns it leaves behind.

The phone just rang, so my writing time is over and it is just as well for I have a lot more to say on these subjects. As long as we love to eat out, have toddies and travel, I am destined to work to cover those costs.

Cy Holmes