Under the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistance to Firefighter Grant Program, Underwriters Laboratories examined fire service ventilation practices as well as the trend over the past several decades to account for larger homes, more open floor plans and volumes and increased synthetic fuel loads.  This fire research project developed the empirical data that is needed to quantify the fire behavior associated with these scenarios and result in immediately developing the necessary firefighting ventilation practices to reduce firefighter death and injury.

Two houses were constructed in the large fire facility of Underwriters Laboratories in Northbrook, IL.  The first of two houses constructed was a one-story, 1200 ft², 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom house with 8 total rooms.  The second house was a two-story 3200 ft², 4 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom house with 12 total rooms.  The second house featured a modern open floor plan, two-story great room and open foyer.   Fifteen experiments were conducted varying the ventilation locations and the number of ventilation openings.  Ventilation scenarios included ventilating the front door only, opening the front door and a window near and remote from the seat of the fire, opening a window only and ventilating a higher opening in the two-story house.  One scenario in each house was conducted in triplicate to examine repeatability.

Online Training Program

In order to make the results of this study more user friendly for the fire service to examine, UL developed an online interactive training module. The program includes a professionally narrated description of all of the experiments, their results and the tactical considerations.

Comparison of Modern and Legacy Home Furnishings

An experiment was conducted with two side by side living room fires.   The purpose was to gain knowledge on the difference between modern and legacy furnishings.  The rooms measured 12 ft by 12 ft, with an 8 ft ceiling and had an 8 ft wide by 7 ft tall opening on the front wall.  Both rooms contained similar amounts of like furnishings. The detailed experiment explains exactly what materials were placed in the respective rooms. Both rooms were then ignited by placing a lit stick candle on the right side of the sofa.  The fires were allowed to grow until flashover.  The modern room transitioned to flashover in 3 minutes and 30 seconds and the legacy room at 29 minutes and 30 seconds.

Visit the UL page dedicated to the experiments here.

Executive summary
Full report.

In your firefighting career, have you noticed the difference between older vs. modern residential fires?