The History of Building Construction Changes - Research Paper Example

?Major Historical Fires in the United s and Their Effect on Building s It is an unfortunate reality of life that many people believe so firmly in the common axiom “if it ain't broke don't fix it”. While this may seem like a generally good behavior, this often means that changes in the status quo are only put in place in response to a major tragedy. The current system often must fail catastrophically before a new system is put in place. This can be seen clearly when looking into the history of building safety codes and their relation to fire safety. Many of these disasters could have had a much lower death toll if only fire safety codes and building regulations had been enacted before, instead of after, these fires. It is important that the fire safety professionals and the fire fighters of today continue to look back on these horrifying tragedies and remember what valuable lessons were learned from these fires, and also remember at what cost those lessons came. The deadliest fire in Chicago history occurred in the Iroquois theater, on December 30, 1903. The reportedly fireproof building had been open a mere five weeks before the scenery caught fire on a reflector. An attempt to bring down the fire safety door, a stage curtain made of asbestos, failed, and the panicked cast fled out the back. The draft from the stage door caused an explosion of flames on the stage that immediately combusted much of the seating area. In the ensuing rush to the exits, 602 people were killed, many of them from being crushed against locked exit doors or exit doors that opened to the inside of the theater (Eastland Memorial Society, n.d.) As a result of the theater fire, Chicago mayor Harrison closed over one hundred and seventy theaters, dance halls, churches, and other large gathering spaces for re-inspection for compliance with building codes. Many of the fire codes had been ignored in the construction of the Iroquois Theater due to bribes given to local governmental officials. Mayor Harrison was determined that this practice would not be allowed to continue. New laws and codes were passed that required marked fire exits, clear exit paths, and doors that opened outward instead of into the line of travel. Additionally, any new theaters had to be equipped with a steel fire curtain for the stage to prevent failure of the type that occurred with the asbestos curtain at the Iroquois Theater (Eastland Memorial Society, n.d.) Another Chicago tragedy was the school fire at Our Lady of Angels on December 1, 1958. The building had a brick exterior and completely wooden interior, and a roof that had been waxed with petroleum-based products. The building had only one fire exit, which to be reached required traveling through the main corridor, negating its purpose. The fire alarms were mounted deliberately out of reach of the children in the building to prevent mischief and, regardless, were not designed to alert the fire department when activated. The fire started in the basement dumpster, allegedly by a ten year old student at the school, then ignited a nearby staircase. The combustion of the stairwell released gases, heat, smoke, and flames onto the second floor, as the second floor exit to the stairwells lacked a fire door, unlike the first floor exits to the same staircases. Many of the children were killed by jumping or falling out the second-story windows after the center corridor filled with flames and the escape route was blocked. The final death toll was ninety-two children and three teaching nuns (Morgan, n.d.). Disturbingly, the building had passed a fire safety inspection just a few weeks before the incident. It had met all fire codes at the time of its construction, and Chicago fire code did not require that existing structures retrofit equipment to meet newer standards. As a result of the disaster, fire codes affecting schools were changed across the country to make schools safer, including such reforms as exterior fire escapes and fire alarms that rang in local fire departments (Morgan, 2001). Another devastating school fire took place in New London, Texas on March 18, 1937, though this tragedy was less about poor building design and more about a lack of understanding about the risks of natural gas. A natural gas leak in the pipe leading from a nearby oil well, a common source of free natural gas during that time period in New London, caused an accumulation under the building in a crawl space until it eventually exploded. The gas came into contact with a spark after a custodial unknowingly activated his electric floor sander. The explosion was so severe it lifted the entire school building off of its foundation and threw a two-ton piece of concrete over two hundred feet away. Approximately 298 of the students and teachers were killed (London Museum, 2011). The New London school building explosion is the most deadly school fire in United States history. The most tragic part is that this disaster could have been prevented if the leak had been detected before the explosion occurred. As a result, Texas law changed to require that methyl mercaptan be added to all natural gas lines. Methyl mercaptan changes the smell of the natural gas from completely odorless to the well-known sulfur smell that today signals, worldwide, the possibility of a gas leak (Fire Prevention Services, 2011). A more recent tragedy involving fire safety codes is the 2003 Station nightclub fire. The band Great White used their trademark pyrotechnic display in a venue far too small for such explosives to be used safely. The pyrotechnics set the soundproofing material on either side of the stage on fire, which quickly spread to the stage despite attempts to put it out. Many concert attendees rushed the main entrance, thinking that was the only exit. This resulted in a pile-up at the exit, with many of the ninety-six fatalities occurring among those trapped only inches from the outside (Riffe, 2003). The legislative aftermath included many reforms for codes in nightclubs and similar venues. Any nightclub-like venue with a capacity over one hundred is now required to have a sprinkler system in place, and have a crowd control officer in the ratio of 1:250 visitors for any event excluding religious services. Two hundred fifty is also the cut off for providing seating for a festival event without a fire safety inspection (Reese, 2004). Additionally, in a 2006 memorial event, the Texas State Fire Marshall launched his “Have an Exit Strategy” campaign, which was designed to remind concert-goers that the way they came in is not the only or even the best way out in an emergency situation (Perez, 2007). Another well-known fire disaster resulting in changes to fire codes nationwide was the World Trade Center attack of September 11, 2001. After being struck by two 767s, the building was soon a raging inferno, and eventually collapsed, resulting in the death of thousands. The National Institute of Standards and Technology conducted an extensive three-year investigation into the collapse of the towers, since it occurred much faster than was originally predicted for the buildings. The main purposes of the investigation were to determine the probably cause of the building collapse, to expand research into relevant areas such as progressive building collapse and retrofitting of fire prevention technologies into older buildings, and create recommendations for prevention of such collapses in the future (National Institute for Standards and Technology, 2010). This investigation proved conclusively that the collapse of the towers was due solely to the damage to the building from the initial airplane strikes and subsequent fires, and that the collapse occurred from top to bottom. This disproved many conspiracy theories about the cause of the collapse, the most widespread being a “controlled demolition” theory stating that the towers were brought down intentionally (National Institute for Standards and Technology, 2006). The recommendations from the report were submitted to the International Code Council for the 2007/2008 code revision cycle (National Institute for Standards and Technology, 2008). The final report contained thirty recommendations spanning a wide range of construction, testing, and fire suppression areas. For example, Recommendation 1 dealt with creating standards for total structural integrity that would prevent and/or delay progressive collapse of high-occupancy or critical buildings, while Recommendation 2 suggests standards for wind tunnel testing of new buildings (National Institute for Standards and Technology, 2010). In the future, one can only hope that these changes in the fire codes will prevent any tragedies of the type discussed here. What history has shown us is that we must be proactive in order to prevent deaths. While all of these tragedies resulted in sweeping reforms to the fire codes and have no doubt saved countless lives in the years since the original disasters occurred, for the victims of those tragedies the changes in regulations came too late. References Eastland Memorial Society. (n.d.). THE IROQUOIS THEATER FIRE. Retrieved March 2, 2011, from http://www.getnet.com/~ksup/iroquois.html. Morgan, E. (2001). Our Lady of the Angels (OLA) School Fire, December 1, 1958. Retrieved March 2, 2011, from http://www.olafire.com/. London Museum. (2011). New London Texas School Explosion. Retrieved March 2, 2011, from http://www.newlondonschool.org/. Fire Prevention Services of University of Texas at Austin. (2009). Historic Fires. Retrieved March 2, 2011, from http://www.utexas.edu/safety/fire/safety/historic_fires.html. Riffe, R. (2003). A First-person Account from a Survivor. Retrieved March 2, 2011, from http://www.projo.com/extra/2003/stationfire/archive/projo-20030223- firstperson.86107bb.html. Reese, S. (2004). If Onlys Become Never Agains. NFPA Journal (Jan/Feb). Perez, C. (2007). Nightclub Safety for Students. NFPA Journal (May/June). National Institute for Standards and Technology. (2010). NIST and the World Trade Center. Retrieved March 2, 2011, from http://wtc.nist.gov/. National Institute for Standards and Technology. (2006). Answers to Frequently Asked Questions. Retrieved March 2, 2011, from http://wtc.nist.gov/. National Institute for Standards and Technology. (2008). NIBS Building Code Experts: Translating WTC Recommendations into Model Building Codes. Retrieved March 2, 2011, from http://wtc.nist.gov/. Read More