An interesting read in the latest F&AI Journal.

As a follow on, it would be interesting to look at the uncertainty of the data for replicate tests to see how well such test fires can be repeatable and reproducible under substantially similar conditions. Hopefully, more will be published based on these data sets.

There is a significant limitation associated with the practical application of this type of work that was not discussed in the paper. That is, the compartment fires were suppressed within tens or hundredths of seconds after "flashover." Unless there is a fire detection system in the building, fires tend towards being discovered in unoccupied buildings by observation of the fire venting from the exterior compartmentalization.

In addition, the response time of fire departments typically covers a wide range of times, nominally minutes to tens of minutes.Thus, most compartment fires are not suppressed in the time frames included in this work. Therefore, this work should be extended to include longer time intervals between post-flashover compartment fires and the suppression of such fires. It is not clear if this was part of the larger test series or if it is anticipated that further work is required to support the reliable application of this work to actual fire incidents.

Douglas J. Carpenter, MScFPE, CFEI, PE, FSFPE
Vice President & Principal Engineer
Combustion Science & Engineering, Inc.
8940 Old Annapolis Road, Suite L
Columbia, MD 21045
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