UL Conducts Firefighting Safety Research
Underwriters Laboratories (UL) recently began a research project to help fire services worldwide improve firefighting tactics and reduce firefighter fatalities and injuries. UL has built two houses and is setting controlled large-scale fires inside a cavernous 10,000 square-foot test chamber at its Large Scale Fire Test and Training Facility in Northbrook. Data gathered from the study is hoped to enhance understanding of fire behaviour in residential structures when affected by natural ventilation (for example, open doors and broken windows) as well as strategic ventilation tactics used by firefighters during an attack on a fire. UL is conducting the high-tech simulations in full-scale 1,500ft2 and 3,200ft2 dwellings that are representative of homes built prior to 1980 and homes built in recent years. Based on prior research, fire experts believe that changes in newer contemporary-style construction, including the use of manufactured lumber components, new building materials, more syn...