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Violent house fire in Lerkil
A house in Lerkil on the Onsalahalvön peninsula caught fire on Friday evening. No people were inside the house.
It was just before 18:00 when the alarm was raised about the fire. The progression was very violent and rapid. After half an hour, the house was completely engulfed in flames. Styrofoam emitted heavy and pungent black smoke as the façade coating practically melted under the intense heat.
The fire brigade focused on containing the fire to the house and preventing it from spreading.
No one was injured, according to the Rescue Service in Greater Gothenburg. The cause of the fire is unknown.
It is supposed to be a three-story house built entirely of Styrofoam. Only the foundation and a couple of cement pillars remained after 15 minutes!! according to text TV.
Is this the end of houses built with Styrofoam?
Violent house fire in Lerkil
A house in Lerkil on the Onsalahalvön peninsula caught fire on Friday evening. No people were inside the house.
It was just before 18:00 when the alarm was raised about the fire. The progression was very violent and rapid. After half an hour, the house was completely engulfed in flames. Styrofoam emitted heavy and pungent black smoke as the façade coating practically melted under the intense heat.
The fire brigade focused on containing the fire to the house and preventing it from spreading.
No one was injured, according to the Rescue Service in Greater Gothenburg. The cause of the fire is unknown.
It is supposed to be a three-story house built entirely of Styrofoam. Only the foundation and a couple of cement pillars remained after 15 minutes!! according to text TV.
Is this the end of houses built with Styrofoam?
Hopefully it's the end of constructions using that kind of polystyrene at least. It shouldn't be too difficult to mix in a flame retardant that stops that type of flashover. Now, whether there is a sufficiently "friendly" flame retardant available yet, that's another question.
I guess my house would also burn down to the basement in 15 minutes as well since wood that has been under a roof for 50 years in the heat is extremely dry. The wood from interior walls that I've thrown in the fireplace can be lit with just one match. That strange gases wouldn't be formed during the fire is another matter.
I agree with you, what's stopping an old dry piece of wood material... it's maybe a matter of minutes before it's all over anyway...Snuttjulle said:
We amused ourselves by making a massive winter bonfire out of all the beams and old flooring we tore out last winter, there was a pile about 6m in diameter and maybe 3m high.
I lit it one night when it was minus 22 outside and used one (1) crumpled newspaper! 1 hour later, nothing was left, and the dry cracks echoed throughout the whole area before that... really scary actually how it got out of hand..!
When was the last time a "plankat" wooden house burned down to the ground in 15 minutes?
The fire progression with wood is often slow because the charring insulates the underlying material from the heat. That's why glulam beams last long, but steel beams cause the roof to collapse. In building fires, oxygen doesn't come from all directions, and, most importantly, it's not drawn in unhindered.
With styrofoam, there is no protective charring mechanism, so it gasifies quickly and also melts.
It's also important that wooden buildings do not lose their structural integrity. Even if they've been smoke-damaged, there's a chance that firefighters can get you out.
The fire progression with wood is often slow because the charring insulates the underlying material from the heat. That's why glulam beams last long, but steel beams cause the roof to collapse. In building fires, oxygen doesn't come from all directions, and, most importantly, it's not drawn in unhindered.
With styrofoam, there is no protective charring mechanism, so it gasifies quickly and also melts.
It's also important that wooden buildings do not lose their structural integrity. Even if they've been smoke-damaged, there's a chance that firefighters can get you out.
Exactly, this was written about a lot a few years ago when it became permissible to build multi-story wooden buildings (where Växjö University was involved and built Sweden's largest wooden building). A glulam beam chars slowly and maintains its load-bearing capacity for a long time, whereas a steel beam buckles after a few minutes in a severe fire.