Characteristics and effects of fire gases

InterFIRE VR Burn

On May 6, 1998 at the State Police Academy in New Braintree, Massachusetts, an experiment occurred which has become the basis for understanding how a fire can develop and spread through the average family home. This test iwas called the "InterFIRE VR Burn" and was conducted through cooperation from a number of government and private industries, including the ATF, U.S. Fire Administration, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as well as the National Fire Prevention Association and American Re-Insurance. The results of this test provide invaluable information on how fires develop and spread and the role of gasses in that process.

In the InterFIRE VR Burn, the fire actually began "in the corner of the living room where there is a space heater next to a couch." (Fire Investigation) the living room was approximately 4.27m (meters) by 5.49m, with a staircase at one end of the room going upstairs, and a ceiling of 2.29m. There was also a 1.22m by .36m window facing out the front of the house and a 1.83m by 1.98m opening between the living room and the dining room. As previously stated, there was a .91m by .91m opening that led through the stairs to the second level. Present in the living room was the aforementioned stuffed couch, where the fire started, next to it was a small table with a lamp, and right in front of the couch was a large wooden coffee table. Between the coffee table and the couch was a small space heater which was the origin of the fire. Directly on the other side of the room from the couch was another table and lamp with a stuffed chair and footrest flanking one side with a television on a stand on the other side, behind which was the living room window. The couch was placed against an inside wall right next to the opening to the dining room and across the opening was another stuffed chair with a small table on the side.

Following the greatest damage one might mistakenly believe that the fire may have started in the upstairs because the damage in the upstairs "bathroom was equal to or greater than the damage in the dining room." (Fire Investigations) This assumption would be wrong since the fire actually started in the first floor living room, and the damage in the second floor bathroom was due to the spread of the fire and the ventilation of fire gases. There was a stairway in the living room which goes up to a perpendicular second floor hallway. At both ends of the hallway were bedrooms which had the doors closed, but in the middle of the hallway, almost directly across from the stairway was a bathroom with a .61m by 1.98m doorway wide open. To make matters worse, there was a .61m by .43m open window inside the bathroom; which itself was a 2.26m by 2.23m room.