A bigger concern to me is the wood rotting from exposure to water or chemicals. Although reinforced concrete also "rots", but in different ways. Wood at least tends to sag before failing from rotting, unlike concrete.
I'm kind of surprised they don't utilize things like steel torsion boxes for the foundations instead of concrete, but perhaps there's cost considerations. They could do a lot of fancy things to extend the size of wooden buildings using steel if they don't mind losing those fire retardant properties.
Also, it should be mentioned that wood-based buildings can re-ignite after an initial fire, which doesn't happen with steel or concrete. While you may escape the fire and the fire gets put out, the structure may still not be safe. We may need new fire codes if these buildings become commonplace.
The problem with incorporating steel into wooden buildings is the difference in coefficients of expansion. Not just thermal but expansion when exposed to bulk water or merely humidity as well. The reason reinforced concrete works is the similar thermal expansion of concrete and steel and their negligible expansion from moisture and humidity.
The development of better engineering methods to deal with wood's expansion in the past two decades or so is one of the reasons tall wood buildings meeting contemporary construction requirements have become more practical and widespread.
This. We just moved our office into a 100+ year old wood building. We're doing the renovating ourselves. Most of the wood in the building is rotting or uneven. I've spent a week so far leveling the floors. Every old (70+ years old) building I've ever been in is like this; some worse than others.
We have our datacenter in a stone/concrete building that was built in 1912. While it has also deteriorated, it's not nearly as bad as the wooden buildings. The floors have cracks in them, but they're still level for the most part, or easily repairable. The building will easily be standing for another 200+ years. I can't say the same for the wood building.
A mostly-stone building will be perfectly fine, though :)
I’ve been personally acquainted with about 10 building emergencies, including minor fires, and in 7/10 cases the facilities management made material errors in response and education that would kill many people in a more serious emergency. You should have zero trust in anything they say.
Seemingly innocuous changes to the building can dramatically reduce your chances of survival in a high rise fire. Bug out is always the best strategy, assuming there is adequate egress. If there isn’t adequate egress, don’t live there.
Of course a wood building is more likely to be a total loss after a fire, so in terms of property damage it's a major consideration. In terms of loss of live, I doubt it makes a major difference as long as all wood has sufficient thickness.
I would imagine that the interior decor is fairly on par in both places, and contributes similarly to the initial risk of fire.
It makes sense that major fires occur more often in the US than Europe, if you think about it. In the US, under the carpet or other flooring material you have wooden floorboards, with air spaces below them. This burns rather well. The structural elements are also made off wood. Once either of these catch on fire, poof.
In Europe, the immediate surface of the floor may be made of wood or another flammable material, but it is attached directly to the concrete substrate. This is much more difficult to burn.
The article did mention that this is pressed laminate wood which is treated not to burn, but rather char slowly. I hope that this type of construction is going to stand up to fire better than the current American wooden construction methods.
However there are vast differences in fire and electrical safety standards. There has been a concerted effort since the 80s to remove flammable sofas, carpets & mattresses. By luck rockwool was the insulation of choice for many years, unlike the states which either used spray foam or some other PE substance.
The standard of electrical safety in the US is comparable to 1960s Britain. (In the UK every plug & every socket _must_ have a fuse. effectively any electrical works demands that RCDs must be installed, which dramatically cut the risk of electrical fires. )
My impression has always been that you _can_ make a wood-framed house, at least, as fire safe as a brick or concrete one, but it's considerably easier for fire safety to be screwed up via improper construction or modifications.
Dying of burns is so hard that even some people who self immolate 'only' die days after or suffer life long impairment. It doesn't matter if the building doesn't burn because all the furniture in people flats will produce 'enough' heat and smoke in minutes, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KSl9s6GjgY
I have been looking at respirators; I didn't get one 'cause my workshop isn't a chemistry lab, but I did look at them, and apparently one option is a bottle of compressed air with a valve so you can breath the compressed air.
The idea, of course, is that no matter how toxic whatever you released into the air was, if you were breathing this compressed air thing it wouldn't get into your lungs.
But... aside from avoiding the halon, I hadn't thought of it as something you would want in a fire and not just in a toxic gas situation, but from your description, it sounds like it'd really help you get out of the building.
I remember reading an article a while ago (https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/v13i6.pdf not sure if it's still valid as it's from 2010), but a significant number of fatal house fires start in the bedroom due to dropped cigarettes... The report mentions that 2% of residential fires are smoking-related, and an average of 365 deals (i.e. in the United States, someone dies every day from setting their house on fire due to smoking!!). So clearly cigarettes can burn a house down pretty rapidly. I would assume, of course, that a substantial number of those deaths would have been people falling asleep and dropping the cig, which probably negates the speed of the fire spreading as being a factor.
Synthetic materials in furniture, carpet, clothing etc burns extremely rapidly as seen in the video. Not to mention that the tree looked to be very dry, and went up like dry grass would. In that situation, the radiated heat from that tree would be more than enough to rapidly set fire to the furniture around it.
An anecdote I can refer to myself is having dropped a cigarette in the car once, and having the entire rear bench-seat catch on fire within moments. (Car was moving at 100kph, so I assume the extra air forced into the environment didn't help!).
IIRC a lot of the dropped cigarette fire deaths are also related to alcohol consumption.
Though, not sure what "Needle moisture content > 100%" means. That it's transpiring?
You should have at least two exists from your apartment. And when you are escaping fire, always open the doors very carefully. First like 5cm to see if there is any smoke coming from behind the door. And hold tight, because fires can suck/blow doors open with those huge air pressure variations.
And perhaps most importantly, do not let anybody to have anything flammable under the stairs in the common staircase. This is specifically against the fire code practically everywhere. But it's also common place for mothers to put their strollers.
Even before doing that, touch the door/handle with the back of your hand to see if it's hot.
For more horror (and to become scared of windows and doors during a fire) see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backdraft
On the other hand, Paris is mostly 4-8 floor buildings and manages to have a better population density than the aggregate NY agglomeration.
I would assume that properly spaced 6-floor appartment blocks with two stairwells and a couple parks in the neighbourhood to evacuate to would reduce fire casualties dramatically, while also offering enough density for efficient transportation networks.
Magnetic strips on the side of the building, and backpacks with metal.
You put on the backpack and shimmy down. Just in case, you also strap yourself onto the slide by its sides, so as not to disconnect from it and fall off.
This is better than a rope because it can hold many people simultaneously.
Do the magnets wear out over time though?
But yes I suppose technically you can have rollers in vertical struts and have them roll down inside the rails, carrying the person.
Maybe because most houses in India are made of brick?
0. http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/fires/by-c...
For instance, where I live there's a rule for houses that all rooms where people might sleep in must have a window big enough to allow a person to escape. Of course, unless you're interested in building a house, you'll never know about this rule.
It's a bit like a seatbelt or an airbag. How often have you actually needed those? Perhaps never. But the day an accident happens, it could easily save your life.
It makes sense to keep a fire axe in your apartment, so you can make your own doorways/windows as needed in a fire. Also good against zombie attacks.
Fire axes are designed specifically for that sort of job.
Plus, a building that is framed with high-density wood beams is different (in terms of fire propagation properties) from an Anglo-Saxon style building of cheap (i.e., low density) timber 2x4's with sheet rock cladding.
supposedly the safest thing to do if there is a fire on another floor is to shelter in place
Of course, that's what they said about Grenfell.
"We've got three commercial fire hoses on every floor," he
said. "We've got three CO2 bottles, big ones, on every
floor. When we did the building originally, we thought we
have enough equipment at the time, so the fire will never
transfer to another unit. We have 45-minute fire doors, so
if we have a fire, we can keep it to one unit."
...
"Solid, concrete and pre-stressed -- it’s the best.” said
Schmidt. It was designed to accommodate natural, tradewind
ventilation, but he thinks those winds also helped to feed
the fire.
A concrete house on the other hand might need the plaster taken down and you're ready to re-plaster and move in. Or just clean and paint. Plus no squeaky stairs, ever :)
EDIT: adjusted wording to clarify re "wood framed"
If I think about it, I suspect this might not apply to larger buildings like those discussed in the article, (unless fixing partially damaged structures is easier? Don't know how the internal details work)
Our building is a concrete building about fourteen stories tall. The information we received as part of the lease tells us that it's known as a non-flammable building, and supposedly the safest thing to do if there is a fire on another floor is to shelter in place. I doubt the same would be true in any wood building.
Oh, and apparently the article also speaks to this:
> It’s also this heft that helps make CLT fire-resistant: the outside layers char slowly, protecting the wood inside from burning.
(More on that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UUGNoTP0Nlc1O-EWf3d1m3QQ&...)