- 7 months ago
The tragedies that led to the mandatory installation of fire hydrants, sprinklers and evacuation drills.
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00:00During the following program, look for web markers like this which lead you to expanded
00:05coverage on our website.
00:07Tonight on NOVA, for centuries we fought a savage enemy and made deadly mistakes.
00:15But the ashes of tragedies past have lead to better ways to escape because accidents
00:21happen.
00:22From the first fire plugs and safety codes to today's state-of-the-art weapons, modern
00:28fire fighting has evolved, but can it get you out alive?
00:33Tonight, the battle against fire.
00:57Major funding for NOVA is provided by The Park Foundation, dedicated to education and
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01:09This program is funded in part by Northwestern Mutual Life which has been protecting families
01:15and businesses for generations.
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02:07it's like an ocean a huge ocean wave it's the power there's some power in it that you have to
02:16be afraid of and you're just fooling yourself you're just a naive ignorant little creature
02:25unless you uh respect it
02:31the full horror of fire can be understood only by those who escape with their lives
02:37time after time the same deadly mistakes are made as victims underestimate the speed of fire
03:01they become disoriented in thick blinding smoke
03:05or suffocate on choking toxic fumes
03:15firefighters have battled this savage enemy for centuries
03:22requiring an increasingly sophisticated arsenal of weapons
03:25but the towering skyscrapers of the 20th century have outstripped even the most modern firefighting
03:37technology
03:38today the best way to defeat fire is to prevent it
03:50we expect public places we frequent to be fire safe like london's king's cross station
03:56this is the ticket hall of one of britain's busiest travel gateways it houses five subway and three railway lines
04:07today it's outfitted with modern fire prevention technology but it wasn't always that way
04:17when thousands of commuters passed through king's cross station in november 1987
04:21they had no idea they were in any danger
04:27the fire started small a careless act on the piccadilly line escalator
04:33one of six escalators in the station it was made almost entirely of wood
04:38underneath years of grease and accumulated debris ignited i've been to basement fires before i've been to
04:49many large fires before i've been to fires involving numbers of people but nothing quite like this
04:57hidden under the piccadilly line escalator the fire continued to grow but rush hour crowds still poured
05:04into the station upstairs a young musician named ron lipsius found nothing out of the ordinary
05:14everyone's like walking around normally we did notice a couple of guys sort of blocking the piccadilly
05:20escalator their arms folded like that just standing there like like snatches really blocked from the
05:27piccadilly line escalator and unaware of the fire ron decided to take the nearby victoria line
05:33he waited on the platform for a train several precious minutes would go by before he was advised to leave
05:42nearing the top of the victoria line escalator ron began to realize that something was dreadfully wrong
05:51all of a sudden we realized that the very spot that we had entered just 10 minutes ago had gone
05:57really nasty looking the fire was heating up the wood and gradually building up and then at the right
06:03time you know bang
06:08suddenly the fire bolted up the piccadilly line escalator and exploded into the ticket hall
06:14it was flashover the worst possible moment in a fire when everything combustible suddenly bursts into
06:20flame king's cross station had become an underground inferno temperatures are reaching something like
06:29upwards to a thousand degrees centigrade and there's no way of getting out of that you can't crouch down low
06:34because the the heat is is everywhere knocked down and badly burned ron somehow survived
06:43but he was in mortal danger acrid black thick smoke very shortly i was disoriented and
06:54you know virtually blind upstairs the casualties were mounting
06:58some people had their clothing was alight their hair it was very singed where they were their arms and
07:06skin were exposed there was there was skin hanging off that had been burnt they were you know in a lot
07:11of pain and and total panic still downstairs and stumbling around ron was fighting for his life
07:19then the miracle as he calls it happened i was actually without knowing it at the very foot of this
07:26stairwell there was this quite bright street light like a beacon you know so i just followed it i mean
07:33i just said that that's you know that's my exit light you know once outside ron collapsed on the street
07:41and was rushed into an ambulance he spent weeks in the hospital and years recovering from his burns
07:49since then ron's had dozens of operations to regain function in his hands
07:58before the fire ron was building a career as a guitarist he can no longer play the guitar
08:04but he still writes music and he considers himself lucky he escaped 31 people died in one of the worst
08:13fires in british history but why it took months of sifting through the ruins to understand why this
08:22fire was so unusual hotter faster and more ferocious than most the shape of the escalator itself is like
08:32a trench um that the fire went up either side as it got near the top the hot air and gases were rising
08:39um superheating um superheating the the ceiling which the uh the paint became hot as it got near
08:46the top the flame actually curved out came over up to the ceiling and it wasn't long after that that
08:52the the actual whole escalator flashed over after the fire more than 150 changes were recommended throughout
09:01britain's public transport system the wood escalators have been replaced with stainless steel
09:07underneath the mechanisms are cleaned regularly and automatic sprinklers have been installed
09:15smoke and fire alarms are now in place and smoking bans are strictly enforced
09:20all lessons learned from the tragedy at king's cross
09:27throughout history fire safety has come at a terrible cost
09:32and every innovation is a legacy of centuries of battle against this brutal enemy
09:43one of the first chapters in firefighting history was written 2 000 years ago in ancient rome
09:50where a brand new technology was in use the pump
09:55it remains the single most important weapon in a firefighter's arsenal
10:07the well is filled by buckets and the pumping action propels a continuous stream of water
10:12right into the fire closer than any human could get
10:15when rome passed into history the water pump was forgotten and in the vast darkness of the next thousand
10:26years firefighting in europe was reduced to prayer and superstition
10:37by the middle of the 17th century london was wholly unprepared for the disaster it was about to experience
10:46a fire of such magnitude it would have consequences for centuries to come
10:53like every town and city in the 17th century london ran a dreadful risk of fire
10:59buildings obviously were of timber lath and plaster many had jetties like the one like this and so reached
11:07out across the narrow streets and alleys till they almost touched and fire could leap across the streets
11:16inside the houses you have open fires you have tallow candles or rushes which can easily set
11:22fire to bed clothes or to other things in the house
11:29you've got industrial premises mixed in among houses you've got blacksmiths you've got goldsmiths
11:36you've got bakeries and in fact it was no accident that it was a bakery where the fire it began in september 1666
11:52spreading to the roof and fanned by a strong wind the fire advanced rapidly
11:57as it moved away from the river another of london's problems became all too apparent
12:04well what you needed was water thing is in 17th century london water's in short supply
12:11okay you can get it from the thames but that can be a hundred yards or you can get it from the pipes of
12:17the water companies under the cobbles in the dark of night the citizen firefighters had to break through
12:26the cobblestones with fire spreading all around them they burrowed down to the wooden water pipe
12:34several feet below
12:41more precious time passed while they drilled a hole in the wood
12:51finally some water to fight the fire
12:53bucket chains were formed sometimes hundreds of people passing leather pails from hand to hand
13:04until they reached the fire
13:10but all too often the water would give out
13:14the pressure was very low and the pipe system unfamiliar to these volunteers
13:19sometimes they'd cut into the wood at the wrong spots wasting water and running upstream areas dry
13:33but the other thing they had were these known as squirts they were brought into london first in the 1620s
13:43and as you can see they work like a giant syringe and they'll squirt about a gallon of water into the flange
13:53a pitiful defense against a raging inferno but the biggest challenge they faced was to fight the fire
14:00where no squirt or bucket could reach if the fire caught in the roof then the situation got worse the
14:09the only thing you can do is actually drag down burning tile and timber down to the street
14:15where you can extinguish it with buckets it must be an incredibly dangerous job to actually reach
14:21up and bring down such debris rain upon the street london was in chaos teeming with people desperately trying to save their possessions
14:31the fire
14:38samuel peeps for instance when he saw the fire finally beginning to
14:43advance towards his house dug a pit in his garden to put in his valuable wine his money his documents and his parmesan cheese
14:53dry conditions strong winds and the total lack of trained firefighters conspired to keep this fire burning
15:07it burned for four days and four nights nearly a hundred thousand people were made homeless
15:16it was only when the wind dropped that the fire began to burn itself out
15:21the great fire of london destroyed three-fifths of the entire metropolitan area
15:28with their city in ruins the people of london finally realized the only escape from the devastation of fire
15:35was to be prepared from the ashes of london modern firefighting began
15:43new building codes were passed wood and plaster were replaced by more fire resistant brick
15:51of the fire
15:52soon a better water system went under construction
15:58wooden mains were still used but now holes were pre-cut in them
16:07removable plugs were placed in the hole
16:11and they were made long enough to reach above ground
16:14marking for the next fire exactly where the water was
16:18this is the origin of the phrase fire plug what some people still call hydrants today
16:28but the great fire might have been very different with one of these
16:32a thousand years after rome fell the dutch reinvented the pump
16:39while london burned amsterdam was protected by 60 manual pumps and hundreds of trained firefighters
16:49but there were drawbacks their pumps had fixed nozzles the best they could do was aim the water
16:55at a window and hope that it reached the fire inside
17:02it took a 17th century dutch painter jan van der heiden to revolutionize firefighting
17:08with an invention we all take for granted today
17:11the hose
17:14it was made of leather and 50 feet of hose weighed about a hundred pounds without the water
17:20with the hose amsterdam's firefighters could get the water closer to the fire than was ever dreamed possible
17:43by the mid-19th century manual pumps had grown very large to cope with the dangerous fires of the industrial age
17:51the problem with these big hand pumpers is they use the crews up very rapidly they take a lot of
17:59people this is when the volunteer fire companies get to be like 50 man companies because you need
18:04all these bodies to keep the hand pumpers running large groups of volunteer firefighters created other
18:11problems especially in cities like cincinnati with competing immigrant populations the conflicts
18:18between those groups and society in general show up with the fire companies for some social ethnic or
18:24even personal reasons these guys just don't like each other
18:30people
18:33somebody make a rude comment and you'd start a massive riot
18:40the problem would be solved with the same technology that powered the industrial age steam
18:49a steam-powered pump could dramatically reduce the number of men needed in the fire service
18:54in 1852 cincinnati unveiled the first american-built steam-powered fire engine and the firefighters
19:05didn't like it at all determined to get this new technology accepted the city of cincinnati held a public
19:13contest the steam engine with its three operators would compete against their best manual pump and a
19:18dozen of the strongest firefighters and may the best man or machine win
19:33for the firefighters the steamer was a serious threat
19:40volunteer things like fire companies are a place where they could get a sense of belonging
19:45they're a social institution sometimes a political institution
19:50and the steam engine was a threat to this determined to beat the steamer the volunteers had an early
19:56advantage all they needed to do was connect the hose to the pumper
20:04tap into the underground water well and pump away
20:09with strong backs and a determined will they quickly got a good stream of water going
20:24the steamer took much more time to get ready it needed to be hot enough to generate the steam
20:29that powered the pump
20:38but finally it too produced a strong stream of water
20:42at best the contest looked like a tie
20:48but time would catch up with the volunteers more than 20 minutes of strenuous pumping took its toll
20:59exhausted they gave up the fight
21:07now the steamer really showed its stuff
21:11not just one but four streams of water all equally strong all from one engine and it
21:17would pump until the coal ran out or the water
21:20within a year the city of cincinnati would change its entire system of firefighting
21:37they look at boston which has a paid fire department had for some time at that point they said this is
21:43this is very efficient they they have good discipline when they pay these guys with the steam engine we
21:49can mix these ideas together and in down in new orleans they're using horses to pull the apparatus
21:55if we put together a whole package of the steam engines and horses and paid firefighters
22:01we'll be more efficient we'll be able to get the fires faster we can fight them longer
22:06by the end of the 19th century most cities in america and europe were using horse-drawn steamers
22:11ultimately they were replaced by motorized fire engines
22:27this is the cincinnati fire department today it is one of the busiest in the united states
22:32in the battle between man and fire the goal has always been the same to get as much water onto
22:41the fire as fast as possible success usually depends on the technology available
22:49today the engine itself is a pump that carries hundreds of feet of hose
22:54many ladders
23:02and a vast array of equipment that often marks the difference between life and death
23:10we certainly use a lot of technology today that we didn't use years ago and it's certainly
23:14very important for us it's kind of like fighting a war you know as the war gets worse you need better
23:19weapons and technology in our case supplies those weapons
23:27they're even beginning to look like weapons the cincinnati fire department is testing out this
23:32quick action water cannon that fires a fine mist at more than 300 miles an hour
23:40no hydrant hookup is needed the mist gun is completely self-contained
23:44the small water tank provides enough ammunition for 35 shots each one powered by a slug of compressed air
23:54this gun may be most useful when water is scarce
23:57one squirt has the same effect as 35 gallons of water from a conventional hose
24:08fire is a very frightening experience you go in and it's absolutely black
24:12there's a lot of heat you can't see a thing you know the smoke is so toxic that if you take a
24:18couple whiffs you're going to go down and not get up
24:24a person that's not been trained or a person that's not been properly prepared to deal with
24:29that environment has very very little chance of surviving in a hostile fire environment
24:34in order to survive this hostile environment and do their job firefighters must be protected
24:42the first line of defense protective clothing
24:48well this is turnout gear this is the equipment that the firefighters wear
24:51when they respond to and go to work at a fire i've got a couple young firefighters here to help me
24:57demonstrate this stuff turnout gear is designed and tested to keep the firefighter inside as cool as
25:03possible in temperatures that can soar well over a thousand degrees
25:16it's also fire resistant
25:20that's extremely important in situations like this
25:24a firefighter caught in a sudden explosion fuel and fire sprayed all over him
25:34thanks to protective clothing he only suffered a burn on his ear
25:39the next thing we want to throw on is a self-contained breathing apparatus without a supply of air
25:44firefighters are unable to enter a burning building
25:48he may get 30 minutes he may get a little more a little less out of there
25:51even with air there are many dangers inside which could incapacitate firefighters
26:06that's why they wear a device that can signal for help
26:11what that device is designed to do is if he were to fall down become immobile not be able to move for a
26:17certain length of time that thing will go off and allow us to find him in a dark atmosphere and we
26:21will be you know we may not know where he's at we might be able to see him but we'll be able to
26:25hear that pass device he can also make it operate himself go ahead and make it hit the panic button hockey
26:34but perhaps the worst part about fighting a fire is the lack of visibility
26:38because they won't work with weapons
26:41these firefighters are about to test a new piece of equipment
26:44that could help them see in the smokiest environment
26:50taste now you can see see how the smoke's already building up
26:57as the toxic cloud of smoke descends
26:59with deadly speed
27:01everyone in this room is in mortal danger
27:03it's the smoke that kills in most cases not the fire within minutes visibility in this room will
27:14be down to zero this is what a fire really looks like unlike the movies there is no flame lighting
27:23the way all is obscured by black deadly smoke these are the conditions that firefighters walk
27:30into every day it's important to make sure that this helmet has a camera attached to the brim that
27:38can penetrate the darkness snug up the rat using thermal imaging technology what it actually sees
27:43is heat make sure you don't bring your right hand up and block that sensor stay low and pan the room
27:51very slowly look for the victim okay okay
28:00once inside this firefighter can immediately see the white-hot flames of the fire on the left
28:10and his colleagues searching along the wall
28:20but the victim is the other way clearly visible with the helmet
28:27he can even guide his colleagues over to help in the rescue
28:36a couple of decades ago this was secret military technology that helped illuminate targets at night
28:53now a life-saving device there is one drawback few fire departments can afford the $25,000 price tag
29:02in real emergencies seconds can make the difference between life and death
29:18today Cincinnati averages about four minutes from the time the alarm is called in to the moment
29:27firefighters arrive on the scene but it wasn't always that way
29:33modern fire communication began with the invention of the fire alarm box in Boston in 1852
29:44hidden inside was a telegraph system when the lever was pulled the number
29:53on the box was transmitted across town to fire alarm headquarters from there it was sent on to the fire
30:01station nearest to the box at the station the address of the box was identified and the fire company was off sliding down the newly invented fire pole
30:15in some stations the alarm system triggered the stall doors to open automatically
30:24and the trained horses were harnessed within seconds
30:27of course the firefighters still didn't know exactly where the fire was
30:32if no one stayed by the alarm box they'd just have to drive around until they saw smoke or flame
30:40over the years fire alarms saved countless lives
30:49but there was one problem some local fire departments went to great lengths to remedy
30:53the fire to discourage false alarms the cleveland fire department tested a cunning contrivance that
31:01automatically manacled anyone sending an alarm seemed like a good idea all around the only catch being it
31:07discouraged genuine alarms too who'd put his hand into that thing
31:11today Cincinnati like cities all over the world uses telephones and computer systems to get to the fire fast
31:21all emergency calls in the city of Cincinnati come here first
31:26Cincinnati fire department yes sir you said you have a person on the second floor with enhanced 911 the
31:39address of the telephone automatically comes up on the screen but that's not always the address of
31:44the fire the address of the fire both on the state Avenue trapped on the floor all right sir we'll get
31:53someone there twelve hundred state now the dispatcher goes to work his computer determines which fire
31:58station is available and nearest to the fire and the call goes out 24 respond to a one alarm fire at
32:05the fire it's very important that we maintain that fast response time because a lot of things can
32:14happen in that four minutes and a lot of times we rescue people in this city merely by seconds fire does
32:22its worst damage in the first few minutes before most fire departments arrive at the scene the solution
32:29to this problem is to build fire safety into buildings themselves like this one in New York City in 1911 this building was a
32:44monument to fire safety made of stone steel and masonry it was considered fireproof it even had a
32:51rudimentary fire alarm and a water supply on every floor when a small fire broke out on the eighth floor
32:59everything went smoothly the fire department arrived quickly and the fire confined to two floors was put
33:06out within 18 minutes it was indeed a firefighting success story except for one thing the building
33:14was a death trap
33:20Gary Breeze executive director of the International Association of Fire Chiefs visits the building that
33:26forever changed worldwide attitudes about fire here we were in 1911 there's 600 people mostly Italian and
33:35Jewish immigrants mostly young women between the ages of 13 and 20 and they're they're working and
33:40putting together what are called shirtwaists dresses of the time they were packed in very much like
33:46sardines I mean this is a classic sweatshop operation and it was a disaster waiting to happen as the workers
33:53got ready to leave for the day no one noticed the small fire smoldering in a rag bin by the time
34:00they did it was growing rapidly fueled by oil from sewing machines and flammable materials it reaches the
34:08tissue paper patterns that are hung above the cutting tables and begin spreading quickly throughout the
34:12eighth floor and and the women that are there begin to panic and and try to get through the doors but one
34:20of the exit doors was always locked to prevent the employees from taking breaks or stealing
34:28there were three other exits one led to a steep and dangerous staircase that was filling with smoke
34:34it quickly became unusable
34:41now the fire escape on the on the back of the building is loaded with people they're trying to get down
34:45but the fire escapes also made out of iron and was not at anchored adequately to the building and it
34:51was heated by the fire and began melting and twisting like you would expect iron to do and was overloaded
34:57and twisted and buckled and dumped all of those people nine stories to the deaths all that was left were
35:04two tiny elevators the elevators were only about four by five very small elevators designed to carry about
35:1110 people each maximum and it wound up taking as many as 20 to 25 people on each trip packing them
35:18in crawling on top of each other and in toward the end the last trips were made very horrendously
35:24the people on the floor recognized that they're not going to be able to wait for the elevator to come
35:28back they begin jumping to the elevator cables and that and sliding trying to slide the cables or in
35:33fact jumping down to try to land on the roof of the elevator and the last load as they came down it
35:38was packed with people it got to the bottom of the shaft and the people began unloading and bodies
35:43began hitting the top of the elevator such that it warped the elevator so badly that the framework was
35:48warped and it could not go back up again no stairs no fire escape and no elevators the remaining triangle
35:56shirtwaist workers were trapped imagine what it's like you're trapped in a building the fires cut you off
36:04from all your exits and the only way you have to go is to step out on a very narrow ledge outside the
36:10building and look eight stories nine stories down the fire department ladders can't reach them
36:17people are watching this on the sidewalk there's absolutely nothing can that can be done
36:21and suddenly that the the choices uh become pretty evident that you either burn to death alive
36:32inside of an inferno and say or you make an effort to try to jump to safety out the window and eight
36:38stories at that point in time nine stories doesn't look that high up in the air when the choices aren't
36:43very many you had girlfriends hugging each other and jumping together
36:51you had a man and a woman kissing and jumping you had a group of five people hold hands and jump
36:57together for for courage it was an incredibly tragic sight
37:03146 people died in the triangle shirtwaist fire 70 more were badly injured
37:10it all happened in less than 20 minutes well the triangle fire caught the nation's attention it
37:18certainly caught the fire services attention and we began looking at really what caused the deaths
37:24and began looking at the building codes and why they were so inadequate to allow those people to escape
37:30and that developed into a building exit code finally it evolved into what's now called the life safety code
37:36every industrialized country has a life safety code requirements for building design and construction
37:44that protect human life in a fire if you pick up the life safety code it's very similar to picking up a holy
37:52book because almost every word and every sentence is in that book as a result of usually tens if not hundreds
37:59of people's deaths we're surrounded by the legacy of tragedies past after a rash of apartment and hotel fires in the 1940s fire escapes were mandated
38:17in this century alone thousands of people have died in theater fires
38:21today most theaters are required to have numerous exits and occupancy is strictly limited
38:34fire alarms and sprinklers are also required and curtains must be made of fire resistant materials
38:41sometimes a single fire can have a profound effect
38:51in 1942 boston's coconut grove nightclub was crowded many of the customers were soldiers and sailors
38:59celebrating their last days before shipping out to war
39:05exactly how the fire started is still in question but there is no doubt about the tragedy that ensued
39:13the ceiling was decorated with a highly flammable fabric fire and toxic smoke filled the room in seconds
39:22we had overcrowding poor exits plus flammable scenery and then panic and fire
39:31hundreds of people became trapped in this burning inferno crushed up against doors that opened inward
39:38other exits were completely sealed off
39:45the majority of people could have gotten out except they had a revolving door
39:48that when people got into it it jammed up and there were no there was no way to unjam the door and the
39:55people simply piled up behind it and people just died in droves right behind the door within within
40:01looking distance of freedom 492 people died in less than 15 minutes
40:09the injured lined the hallways of boston's hospitals
40:12officials collected bodies for hours personal belongings were gathered in piles
40:20and unclaimed cars were towed away for days it remains the worst nightclub disaster in american history
40:31as a result of that fire we readdressed exiting provisions
40:34uh and you'll now go into any public building that has a revolving door and beside it there'll be
40:40flanking doors on both sides that have direct access to the outside
40:46today's cities reach to the heavens
40:49but it's buildings like this that pose the greatest danger for the occupants and the greatest challenge
40:54to firefighters
40:56some of the most horrifying fires have occurred in the high-rise buildings that tower over our cities
41:01one of the worst the joelmo office building in sao paulo brazil in 1974. it started on the 15th floor
41:23the stairwells filled quickly with smoke and flames
41:31the heat was so intense that the helicopters could not land on the roof
41:39ladders could not reach the trapped victims for some there was no choice
41:48a hundred and seventy nine people died the greatest loss of life in any high-rise fire
42:01the firefighting challenges posed by high-rise buildings were graphically illustrated in this
42:08philadelphia building in 1991 a fire broke out on the 22nd floor the only luck in this fire was that
42:16the building was empty everything else that could go wrong did
42:24fire department responded as soon as they got there the power went out for the entire building
42:29and they began moving all their equipment by hand up the stairwells and when they got up to begin
42:35engaging the fire they didn't have enough pressure in their hose and that consequently the fire continued to grow in size
42:41the water pressure problem would not be solved for more than 10 hours
42:56in that time three firefighters lost their way in the smoke ran out of air and died
43:02structural engineer advised them the fire had been burning so hot for so long that floors may begin
43:16collapsing in the building and the fire chief made the decision a very difficult decision to evacuate all
43:23firefighting and stop all firefighting operations and the fire service pulled out and literally stood
43:29on the street like a spectator would and watched the fire consume the floors from 22 23 24 all the way up to 30
43:37on the 30th floor their luck turned
43:43a few floors at the top had been retrofitted with sprinklers
43:4710 sprinkler heads on the 30th floor did what the best efforts of the philadelphia fire department could
43:53not do and that stopped the vertical progression of the fire there has never been a multiple death in
44:00a properly sprinklered building yet only 40 percent of high-rise buildings have them less than two percent
44:07of homes the surprising thing is that the technology has been around for almost 200 years
44:17sprinklers date back to 1812 when british inventor sir william congreve patented the forerunner
44:23of the modern sprinkler system he arranged a series of perforated pipes along the ceiling valves
44:35outside the building controlled water flow to the pipes that meant that fire had to be big enough to
44:42attract notice 50 years later a piano maker would come up with the automatic sprinkler
44:54unaware of congreve henry parmalee long feared what a fire could do to his connecticut piano factory
45:00he would not only solve that problem but create a new business for himself
45:07parmalee placed a cover over a small piece of pipe
45:11the genius behind this idea was that the solder he used would melt at 155 degrees
45:17then he attached the assembly to a pipe that was directly connected to a water supply
45:35to protect the entire area he spaced a series of pipes
45:39several feet apart along the ceiling of his factory
45:47when the temperature at the sprinkler head reached 155 degrees the solder would melt
45:59although today's sprinklers are more efficient the basic technology is still the same as henry
46:04parmalee's invention almost 150 years ago
46:14sprinklers would probably have made quick work of this 1993 fire in basing stoke england
46:20but none had been installed because engineers believed this five-year-old building would
46:25itself prevent fire from spreading
46:30they had good insulation on all the walls they had pressurized staircases the whole structure was
46:36fire blocked which meant that if a fire started on a floor it would be contained on that floor and it
46:41wouldn't spread to the rest of the structure and it worked for a while the fire was initially
46:48contained on the eighth floor but there was one thing the designers didn't plan on
46:52eventually the exterior glass panels broke and flames emerged from from the fire compartment
47:00what they'd forgotten to take into account in designing the structure was that it was possible
47:04for fire to spread to higher floors via the exterior portion of the building
47:13it was an expensive lesson that none of the building designers predicted
47:17to understand this unusual fire the university of gredich rebuilt the exterior of the basing stoke
47:26building in its computers here we have three segments of a view of the same structure on the
47:33left we've got a case where we've got the fire that's broken the glass and beginning to spread up the
47:38side of the building and as you can see the fire plume adheres to the side of the building and as it adheres to
47:44the side of the building it's more likely to spread fire to the upper floors and in fact to the exterior
47:49part of the building to solve the problem ed gallia drew in some ledges or protrusions over the window
47:58on the far right the one meter ledge is big enough to deflect the flame
48:04although some of the hot gases cling to the building the temperature stays low and the fire
48:08won't spread from the outside as far as i know no buildings have purposely put in this device as a
48:18prevent as a means to prevent fire spread to to to the higher floors however some buildings have it as
48:23a as a matter of course for example if you have a balcony you have this protection built into your
48:30structure or it could be a deployable device so that when a fire breaks out you have a deployable ledge
48:38which comes out perpendicular to the side of the building and deflects upward moving flame
48:44computer modeling holds promise for safer building design although even ed gallia warns that computers
48:50can't solve all fire problems it's not possible to design a building which is 100 fireproof because
48:56of that then you need to make sure that you can get people out of that structure as quickly and
49:01efficiently as possible escape from a fire demands more than good design it also requires understanding
49:10people this became painfully obvious in bradford england when in the middle of a televised soccer
49:18game a small fire started in the debris under the stands we've actually got a fire in the stand on the
49:24far side of the ground people are still sitting around watching the game watching the fire not
49:32really trying to get away from it as quickly as possible very soon the heat and flames became unbearable
49:40one hopes the stand doesn't burn down and the two and a half thousand people in that stand are
49:46panicking and in seconds that small fire developed into a flash over event which took the entire stand
49:53these are disastrous scenes for the club 53 people died mostly because they waited too long to escape
50:01but why didn't they recognize the danger most people aren't faced with fire in their everyday life we
50:09no longer have uh open fires in our houses we have central heating we no longer have um uh fire for
50:17cooking we have electric cooking ranges and so on so when a fire incident happens they
50:23forget about how quickly fire can spread and they and they've forgotten about how dangerous the actual
50:30fire products the gases uh the smoke can be to save lives human behavior must be taken into account
50:39in modern building design and that's exactly what this computer model does each one of these virtual
50:47people is given physical attributes age weight strength and so on and they are also given psychological
50:54traits drive intelligence and ambition well we're using the the exodus computer model to help design
51:03structures while the building is still in the planning phase so that it's more efficient in terms of
51:09evacuation of people where do you have the exits for example what type of how wide should the exits be
51:16what sort of staircases should you have how many staircases what sort of procedures should you have
51:23the goal is to learn the lesson before tragedy strikes maybe in the future more fire victims will die in
51:30computers than in their homes and offices but until then surviving a fire involves knowledge and preparation
51:40gary breeze knows better than most that no building is fireproof for him fire safety is a routine part of
51:47everyday life and your last name sir last name is breeze b-r-i mr breeze i have you here for two nights
51:55well when i check into a hotel or in fact when i go in any high-rise building i ask the front desk
52:00whether the hotel is sprinkler and detected it is definitely as i'm walking down the hallway i'm
52:07looking are the fire extinguishers there are they in fact in date by the sticker on the extinguishers
52:13are the detectors in the hall are the sprinklers in the hall i mean this doesn't take any time it's
52:17time you're walking down the hallway i ask for a room no higher than the seventh floor and facing the
52:26street and the reason is if all things fail most fire departments in urban cities will have ladders
52:33that will probably reach the seventh floor of the building to evacuate over ladder if necessary
52:40i check to see if the smoke detector is in the room sprinklers in the room i test the smoke detector
52:47the most important thing to know is where the exits are in case an emergency does happen
52:55gary walks the route as soon as he settled in his room
53:03as i'm walking to the closest exit i'll note how many doorways there are between myself and that exit
53:09because invariably the fire alarm is going to go off and you're going to roll out of bed half asleep
53:14you don't know where you are anyway because it's a strange hotel i go through this procedure for my
53:18own safety but as importantly or maybe even more importantly i go through go through it for my
53:23family they deserve a parent who's coming home from the trip they don't deserve a phone call in the
53:29middle of the night i don't trust anywhere i don't care if it's a government building a cinema
53:36wherever i don't trust anything anymore the first thing i do when i go inside a space is i think where
53:48am i how am i going to get out i had a real tough time trying to get out of somewhere once
53:54so and i don't want it to happen again what do you need to know when accidents happen be prepared log
54:12on to nova's website
54:33the escape set is available on home video cassette for 49.95 plus shipping and handling to order call
54:411-800-255-9424
54:55the park foundation
55:10nova is a production of wgbh boston
55:18major funding for nova is provided by the park foundation dedicated to education
55:25and quality television
55:29and by i omega makers of the zip drive and 100 megabyte zip discs your universe is expanding but you
55:37can save it in your own personal space i omega because it's your stuff
55:46this program is funded in part by northwestern mutual life which has been protecting families and
55:51businesses for generations have you heard from the quiet company northwestern mutual life
55:59and by the corporation for public broadcasting and viewers like you
56:05this is pbs
56:17i watch a lot of news but i really look for in-depth coverage i look for balance coverage i like to watch
56:24pbs offers a banquet of programs i like to keep informed a lot of times i don't have time to read newspapers
56:33and i've watched a lot of the different channels but when it comes to my choice i know i will never
56:39get the in-depth coverage from any other channels except to pbs
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