Mcginn Copy - Why America Burns (Final)

Why America Is Burning
A History to Why America is Burning
DECEPTION AND LIES
by: R. M. Patton Fire Protection Engineer
WhyAmericaIsBurning26May10.pdf | Published: 01 May, 2010 | Last Updated: 26 May, 2010 Check for latest version with live links (underlined blue text) at: www.scribd.com/doc/30802309/Why-America-Is-Burning
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T ab l e of Con ten t s:
PART 1: AMERICA IS BURNING PART 2: WHY AMERICA IS BURNING PART 3: THE EASY SOLUTIONS TO STRUCTURE FIRES PART 4: FIRE IS A PROFIT MAKING BUSINESS PART 5: WHY IONIZATION SMOKE DETECTORS KILL PART 6: THE KILLERS AND FACILITATORS PART 8: THE INCREDIBLY CORRUPT INDIANA DUNES TESTS PART 9: EVIDENCE A FIFTH GRADE STUDENT COULD UNDERSTAND PART 10: ADDITIONAL INVESTIGATIONS PROVE THE DEVICE IS DEADLY PART 11: THE FIERY DEBATE PART 12: THE DEADLIEST BETRAYAL IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICA PART 13: DO AUTHORITIES KNOW IONIZATION ALARMS ARE DEFECTIVE? PART 14: IT WOULD BE NICE IF SMOKE DETECTORS DETECTED SMOKE PART 15: IS YOUR FIRE INSPECTOR A KILLER? PART 16: WHEN RECOMMENDING SPRINKLERS COULD COST A JOB PART 17: DO NOT PUT THAT FIRE OUT - THE FIRE PROFESSION PART 18: THE CRIME OF SILENCE PART 19: HOW THE SYSTEM WORKS PART 20: EMPOWERING THE FIRE INSPECTORS PART 21: CIRCUMVENTING THE ANTITRUST LAWS PART 22: ANY STUPID ANSWER WILL SUFFICE PART 23: THE LEGACY OF CORRUPTED FIRE CODES PART 24: DO NOT PUT THAT FIRE OUT - THE ECONOMY OF FIRE PART 25: THE ALTERNATE TO SPRINKLER PROTECTION PART 26: VOODOO ENGINEERING 3 3 3 4 5 7 9 11 11 13 13 14 16 17 19 19 20 21 23 23 26 27 28 28 29
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A History To Why America Is Burning?

PART 1: AMERICA IS BURNING NATIONAL FIRE LOSSES: The federal government evaluated the fire problem in the United States as follows: The U.S. fire problem, on a per capita basis, is one of the worst in the industrial world. To put this in context; the annual losses from floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and other natural disasters combined in the United States average just a fraction of those from fires.
Fire in the United States, 13th Edition, Federal Emergency Management Agency Page 1, Oct 2004
PART 2: WHY AMERICA IS BURNING THE CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES: Within this report I will provide the evidence to confirm that this devastation by fire is not always due to carelessness, conditions beyond control or, as the fire insurers put it, Acts of God. No, many of the devastations are caused by corrupt businesses and corrupt governments that have guaranteed . . . yes, guaranteed, a horrendous level of fire losses within the United States. The facts are provided below. Read and you will believe. AMERICAS DEADLIEST FRAUD: The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in a Summary Order dated March 25, 2008 (in the case of Hackert vs. First Alert, Inc. and BRK Brands Inc) confirmed: the ionization type socalled smoke detector was defectively designed and the legal cause of the deaths of children. These children killer ionization type so-called smoke detectors have been sold into at least 80 million U.S. homes. My calculation reveals that approximately 75,000 fire deaths have occurred within homes so protected. The ionization smoke detector fraud is one the deadliest fraud perpetrated within the United States. THE FIRE REGULATORY SYSTEM IS CORRUPT: The corruption is not limited to the smoke detector. Within this report I will provide the evidence that nearly all fire deaths in America are the end result of incredible corruption within the fire regulatory field. HIGH LEVEL FIRE OFFICIALS HELPED HIDE THE DANGERS: Within this report I sometimes criticize the high level officials of the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC). Many who represented the IAFC are very deserving of the criticism. Their ignorance and or failure to act, allowed the defective ionization type so called smoke detectors to be installed in approximately 80 million U. S. homes. And, of more concern, when apprised of the facts and the endangerment to the public, many of the top officials deliberately concealed the dangers from the public and from other fire officials below their level. Even after the ionization device was proven defective by actual fire tests, these high level officials continued to conceal the dangers from the public. As a result, tens of thousands of fire deaths resulted and countless others who were maimed and disfigured. And this does not take in account the number of lives destroyed by the emotional pain that never dies! So, I put these high level officials into that group that silently supported the fraud including
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the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), Underwriters Laboratories (UL) and the manufacturers of the phony so-called smoke detector. I also want to point out; when an official has been provided with performance claims that imply that a safety device is unusually reliable and, as a result, that official in all good conscience promotes the device, the fault for the consequences is not his. After all, he/she believes the information that comes down from above and is performing on the best information available. However, it is an entirely different situation when a high level official is provided with facts that prove beyond any doubt that a device being sold for profit is defective and an endangerment to life. That official has a DUTY of CARE to protect the public. He/she has an obligation to advise those within his/her jurisdiction of the endangerment. Even if the first information received is not fully convincing, with human life at stake, there is an obligation to follow up on the information provided. Every effort must be taken to develop the truth. That is what he/she is being paid to do. It is a terrible betrayal of the people to simply ignore warnings and facts and thus allow wrongful deaths to occur. To ignore an endangerment and to help market a defective device that is causing thousands of fire deaths equates to at least second degree murder. Moreover, who is responsible for the countless lifelong disfigurements that have destroyed thousands and thousands of more lives? While I have contempt for those who committed crimes by selling, or helping to sell defective fire warning devices, I also say that the blame should be limited to those who were in a position to know the facts and correct the crimes, and failed to do so. The great majority of fire department officials within the many cities and towns, and especially the brave firefighters, who so often put their own lives at risk to save others, should not be condemned for the sins of the guilty. PART 3: THE EASY SOLUTIONS TO STRUCTURE FIRES FIRES WITHIN BUILDINGS ARE EASY TO ELIMINATE: Fire is like a tiger cub. When first born it is easy to kill. But, allow it to grow and soon it becomes the killer. With fire, the growth time to killing time is frequently less than 5 minutes. Hence, control a fire within a building within the first two or three minutes or, quite possible some will die.FIRES NEMESIS: The easy way to eliminate fire is with water spray. Fire can survive only within an environment where the surrounding temperature is nearing a thousand degrees F. Reduce the temperature of the fires environment and fire dies. THE REQUIRED WATER: When fire is first born one gallon of water, especially if delivered in a spray form, is sufficient to kill. Water kills by cooling and it has an absolutely incredible ability to absorb heat when applied in droplets. The surface area of the water is maximized when broken into fine spray and the greater the surface in contact with the fire the greater the heat absorption. But five to ten minutes later, when the firefighters presumably arrive, often a hundred thousand gallons is inadequate. If that one gallon of water is delivered to the early fire there will be no need for the hundred thousand gallons ten minutes later and theres the rub. TWO WAYS TO GUARANTEE EARLY FIRE CONTROL: There are two solutions to the building fire problem, which is the great portion of the total fire problem. One is to install reliable and honest fire detectors in homes. When an alarm sounds while the fire is still small, and if an effective means to control the early fire is available, the still tiny and harmless fire can be promptly and safely terminated. Thus, an honest and reliable fire detection system could
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prevent fire deaths and serious damage to a home at least 90 percent of the time. Better yet, there is statistical fire loss data to confirm that an automatic fire sprinkler system can control the early fire and prevent fire deaths with 99.9 percent reliability. THE FIRE CONTROL CAPABILITY OF FIRE SPRINKLERS: I provide a quote from an article by Mr. T. Seddon Duke, within The Rostrum publication dated September, 1959 Sprinkler supervised by ADT Central Station Supervisory and Water Flow Alarm Service have had (since 1925) a satisfactory performance record of 99.98 percent! Mr. Duke was the president of a fire sprinkler company. Therefore, as of 1959 (if not much earlier), loss data revealed that an electrically monitored fire sprinkler system was approximately 99.9 percent reliable at controlling the early fire. Other data indicated that fire deaths in sprinklered buildings were very close to zero. PART 4: FIRE IS A PROFIT MAKING BUSINESS THE PROBLEM WITH RELIABLE FIRE SOLUTIONS: The reason why fires in homes grow large and kill and injure is because the occupants do not become aware of the fire when it is still tiny and easy to kill or escape. Thus, it is a near certainty that a reliable and honest fire detection system in a home will dramatically reduce fire deaths, injuries and major property damage. A fire sprinkler system in any building will come extremely close to totally eliminating fire deaths, injuries and serious property damage. Both systems will result in water spray being applied to the early fire before it has a chance to grow. Therefore there are economical ways for fire to be transformed from a national disaster to a near triviality. However, there is a serious problem with both of these within the building fire control systems. At present Americas fire code maker, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) estimates that fire in the United States costs this nation more than 300 billion dollars a year. Those 300 billion dollars are going to businesses and bureaucracies that profit from or otherwise benefit from fire. Yet, these are the very organizations that provide the voluntary code writing members that produce the fire codes of the NFPA. The NFPA codes have been structured to guarantee that fire losses in the United States will remain high and profitable for those that benefit from fire. HOW TO GUARANTEE THAT FIRE WILL GROW LARGE AND KILL: In many cases fire can grow at a rate of 5 fold every minute! This means it can expand 3,125 times in five minutes. If fire is your ally and a producer of profits and paychecks, there is an easy way to guarantee that fires remain frequent and deadly. The easy solution is to guarantee that the great majority of the building fires do not have water spray applied within the first five minutes. Its that easy. WHERE FIRES KILL: The home is where approximately 95 percent of all fire deaths (due to building fires) occur. Hence, if the fire deaths are to be the justification for additional government funding for the fire services, the key is to prevent the means to apply water spay to the early fire from being installed in homes. GUARANTEEING THE CONTINUITY OF HOME FIRES: The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) developed a dishonest fire sprinkler code. This code made it virtually impossible to install affordable and practical sprinklers in homes. Also, the NFPA fire detection code was revised to mandate defective (indeed phony) smoke detectors in homes. These devices will warn of bread being toasted and the shower running but will sit silent as civilians die! Proof of this is provided below and on the referenced web sites. With NFPA codes guaranteeing that
water spray would not be applied to the early fire until the remote firefighters arrived, the American Holocaust grew horrendously over the decades. As the fire devastations grew the benefits derived from fire multiplied. THE FREE-BURN TIME: Fire department officials try to maintain a five minute response time as the goal for protecting human life in homes. This is the time needed for the fire trucks from the nearby fire station to arrive at a home (or other building) within the protected area. But the response time is not a full measure of the time between ignition (when the threat to life begins) and the time when firefighters actually enter the home to look for trapped people (or bodies). The time that has greater meaning is the FREE-BURN time. This is the time from ignition until fire control is actually initiated. A FREE-BURN time includes the (frequently delayed) time of discovery by the occupants. It includes the possibly further delayed time until a call is made to 911 plus the time until the information is relayed to the closest fire station. The free-burn time includes the driving time from the station to the fire scene. It includes the arrival times of volunteers if a volunteer department provides the service. It includes the delays caused by fire fighters asleep in bed getting fully dressed and the travel delays by trains, traffic, snow and ice. The first arriving pumper usually will look for a hydrant to hook the pumper to so that there will be adequate and uninterrupted hose stream water. Especially during the winter there may be unexpected delays in completing the hook-up to the hydrant, the layout of the hose and getting high pressure water to the fire site. If the fire is an advanced stage, which is often, it will be unsafe for firefighters to actually enter the building until the hose streams knock down the heat and to some degree clear the smoke. Firefighters enter a burning building behind a high pressure fog which drops the heat and provides a barrier between the flames and those manning the hose. Although it is not unusual for the firefighters to enter in an effort to save lives while conditions are still very dangerous, it is prudent to get the fire well under control before entering. It is also sensible because when conditions are so bad that there is extreme danger for those who enter, the odds are that anyone still within the home is no longer alive. Only then, if by then, can a search for victims be safely initiated. That is the FREE-BURN time and that is the time that has significance as to whether those within the building will live or die. This is why I say the following are extremely important: 1. Your home needs adequate photoelectric type (true) smoke detectors with separate or built-in heat detectors. Smoke detectors detect low heat smoky fires and heat detectors warn of the extremely dangerous fast growing flaming fires. Because the further the detectors are from the early fire the greater the delay in the warning, best protection is to have a detector in every room. 2. When the fire is of the smoldering type, if you have the correct type smoke detectors (photoelectric) there should be adequate time to exit because deadly conditions develop slowly. But when flames are present do not delay leaving for any reason. Flaming fires will suddenly increase in intensity unexpectedly (its called room flashover). If flashover occurs while you are still within the home it may be impossible to reach the exit door. 3. Equip your home with the correct type fire detectors and be outside on the front lawn when the first fire engine arrives, otherwise you may be coming out horizontally. PART 5: WHY IONIZATION SMOKE DETECTORS KILL THE COURT HAS CONFIRMED IT IS A KILLER: The United States Court of Appeals for the second circuit in a Summary Order dated March 25, 2008, regarding the case of Hackert vs. First Alert Inc. and Standard Brands, Inc. ruled that: The ionization smoke detector was defectively designed and it was the legal cause of deaths.
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Thus we have a court of law confirming what I have been saying for more than three decades, the device that is installed in at least 80 million U.S. homes is a killer of children. A SMOKE DETECTOR THAT CANNOT DETECT SMOKE: The combustion products created by a flaming fire, or a smoldering type fire, are dramatically different. A large flaming fire creates enormous energy. This high energy results in the combustion particles being extremely minute and far too small to be seen by the human eye. The smoldering type fire, possibly caused by a lit cigarette left on a sofa or bedding, creates a thick visible particulate known as smoke. It was well proven by the 1974 Dunes Tests, Phase 1, that the ionization type so-called smoke detector will sound only when the particulate entering the device consists of many millions (or billions) of particles per cubic inch. The particle size that best trips the device is near atomic size. Thus what will cause the ionization type so-called smoke detector to sound is invisible particulate, with the suspended particles too minute to be visible to the human eye. Visible combustion particles called smoke are too large and too few to cause the ionization device to sound. Hence, smoke is not what causes the phony (ionization type) device to warn. A smoldering type fire creates (visible) smoke which will not cause the device to warn. But a smoldering type fire can create toxic gases including, but by no means limited to, carbon monoxide. Whereas the deaths are usually described as due to smoke inhalation the true cause is toxic combustion gases, not smoke. And, although carbon monoxide is considered the primary deadly gas produced by fires, actually it is the synergistic effects of the entire package of toxic combustion gases that kills. Initially the phony smoke detector was named a Products of Combustion (POC) detector because the manufacturers knew it was not a smoke detector. However, after they realized they could get away with it, they renamed it a smoke detector. THE POC DETECTOR IS ALSO UNRELIABLE FOR FLAMING FIRES: The flaming fire is capable of producing combustion particles (solid and liquid) that are of high energy and sufficiently minute and numerous to operate the ionization device. However, when the hot combustion particulate created by the early small fire rises to the cool ceiling it spreads out in all directions. It then becomes more dilute as it mixes with the cooler air. As the temperature drops on the way to the so-called smoke detector, the minute combustion particles agglomerate (bind together) and become larger and less numerous. This is similar to the way rain drops are created as moist ocean air rises up a mountain range. So, when the combustion products from the early and small flaming fire finally reach the so-called smoke detector the particulate is often too large to activate the alarm. When the flaming fire becomes large enough to send a hot particulate promptly and directly to the installed device, probably (but not with certainty) it will sound. However, by then the fire may already be at the killing size. Both the flaming and smoldering fires will often reach a deadly stage prior to a warning sounding. THE FLAWED TESTING AT UNDERWRITERS LABORATORIES: Underwriters Laboratories (UL) conducts four flaming fire tests at its lab within a large room where the detectors are installed approximately 17 feet from the fire. The highest smoke density allowed for passing the tests is 37 percent light reduction per foot. This represents an extremely dangerous, indeed fraudulent testing of the device. During the many years when the smoke detector manufacturers were claiming their devices would warn when the smoke density was 4 percent (sometimes 2 percent) UL never required the manufacturers to reveal the actual smoke density when their devices operated. So, for many years (indeed it is still occurring) the manufacturers deliberately lied about the ability of their devices to detect fires and UL failed to warn the public that the performance claims were being disproved within the UL test facility. Thus, the manufacturers and
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Underwriters Laboratories were in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the public. And this fraud was killing thousands of children. Hence, the term Children Killers is very appropriate. TESTING THE DETECTOR IN A SMOKE BOX: Originally, smoke detectors were tested (relative the smoldering fire) only in a smoke box. The detector, a burning wick and a blower were all enclosed within the compact box. The blower blew fresh air across a burning wick and then directly into the smoke detector. The delivery of fresh air enhanced the smoldering and produced a particulate type capable of operating the device. Then the combustion products immediately entered the detector before the minute particles could agglomerate. This test was perhaps an adequate test for a fire in a foot locker with the smoke detector also located within the foot locker. But, it was in no way pertinent to the true behavior of the device in the real world. Thus UL certified the device as being a reliable detector of both the flaming and the smoldering fire whereas it was close to useless for both. In Australia the performance of this phony smoke detector was tested without requiring it to detect smoke. THE CREATION OF A FRAUDULENT SMOKE DETECTOR TEST: During the Dunes Tests, as previously stated, the average time for an ionization device to respond to a smoldering fire (when it did respond) exceeded one hour! Then, it operated only because the smoldering fire was near or at its ignition point for flaming. The Dunes Researchers avoided a major scandal for the NFPA and UL by mixing up and hiding the computer generated data in the rear of the report and by lying about the results up in the conclusions at the front of the report. They did this knowing that very few people would read beyond the conclusions. But that still left UL without a valid test for a smoldering fire and many fire chiefs were questioning the legitimacy of the product. So, UL created a new (but phony) test to further deceive the fire chiefs. The new test involved placing Ponderosa Pine sticks on a hot plate and heating the hot plate up to or near 700 degrees F. When the Ponderosa Pine was near its auto-ignition temperature (for flaming) it produced a type of high energy smoke (that contained the billions of the near atomic sized particles that were required to operate the device). But, this is not the type of smoke that a real smoldering (low temperature but smoky) fire creates. It short, the new test was one more deception. PART 6: THE KILLERS AND FACILITATORS WHO ARE THE CHILDREN KILLERS? The following makers and sellers of the ionization type so-called smoke detector marketed a defective and often deadly device that was simply not capable of producing a warning reliably enough and promptly enough to provide reasonable protection for the occupants of homes. However, they compensated for the defects of their devices by claiming incredible performance capabilities. The performance lies were believed largely because the NFPA and Underwriters Laboratories helped sell the lies, promoted the devices and rigged and falsified tests to hide the endangerment. The number of victims that were killed or horribly injured is estimated to be in excess of 400,000. Small children have especially been victims, hence I call the ionization smoke detector a children killing device. The following company names are those that appeared in the false ads that ran in the Fire Journal of the NFPA between 1965 and 1980: NFPA Fire Journal Advertisers: 1965 - 1980 Kidde; Bliss Gamewell;
The Autocall Company; Unelco Limited; Faraday; Simplex; BRK Electronics; Honeywell; Firemark, and; PYR-A-LARM THE CO-CONSPIRATORS/CO-KILLERS: The following organizations aided and abetted the children killers. Indeed, it is the dishonesty of these organizations, and their failures to warn the public that has been the root cause of the killings. Therefore the following organizations also should be held fully liable for the deaths: The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA); Underwriters Laboratories (UL); The International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC); The Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE); Factory Mutual Research (FM); Factory Mutual Engineering (FM); The Office of the State Fire Marshal of California, and; Others (possibly to be named in legal actions) PART 7: WHY IT WAS CRIMINAL AND DEADLY IT WAS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY: My accusations are pertinent to the following crimes and possibly others: Manufacturing and selling a dangerous and frequently deadly device improperly named a smoke detector. As stated earlier, it is estimated that a defective and frequently deadly socalled smoke detector was sold into at least 80 million U.S. homes and many tens of millions more overseas; Advertising false performance claims for the device (an ionization type so-called smoke detector) within the NFPA publication, the Fire Journal, between the years of 1965 through 1980, and in other publications that went to fire department officials; Testing the device with inadequate and false performance tests in the laboratory and concealing the conditions under which it would fail to perform; Conducting a federally funded test where the tests were rigged to provide false conclusions. Disseminating deliberate performance lies within a federal fire research report
i.e. The 1974~1976 Indiana Dunes Tests Report conducted by The National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) - formerly the National Bureau of Standards (NBS);
Recommending, promoting, distributing (often for free) and installing devices known to be defective and deadly into buildings. Deceiving occupants of its ability to perform; Testing the installed devices with a smoke detector tester that provides a fallacious positive test for a dangerously defective device. Assuring the occupants that the device will warn under conditions where it will fail to warn; When fire deaths occurred due to the inability of the device to detect real (visible) smoke, providing official but false reports relative the true reasons for the deaths; Continuing to cover-up the crimes for more than four decades during which an enormous number of wrongful deaths and injuries occurred, and; The crime of silence (see Part 18 below).
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WHY ITS MURDER: All of the above activities were (and are) crimes that equated to felonies. When a felony results in deaths the perpetrators can be charged with murder. My calculations, based on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) fire loss data, indicate that probably more than 75,000 fire deaths have occurred within smoke detector protected homes. Because the devices were confirmed as being defective more than three decades ago, it required many people within the fire community to continue to deceive the public relative the endangerment. As the deceptions continued, the number of victims increased rapidly. This could not occur without the cooperation of many; therefore it was a conspiracy. When one or more persons are involved in a deadly conspiracy, all can be charged with the crimes. THE PERFORMANCE LIES: The manufacturers claimed, within full page ads within the Fire Journal, a publication of the NFPA that: their devices would warn of potential fires before flames or smoke appeared. Apparently these false performance claims within the NFPA publication over a period of 15 years convinced the fire chiefs to promote the devices and seek legislation to require installations of these devices in homes. Some direct quotes from these ads are provided below: 1. September 1965 - PYR-A-LARM: PYR-A-LARM FASTEST Fire & Smoke Detector Available. The PYR-A-LARM reacts immediately to the invisible products of combustion before there is visible smoke, heat or flame. 2. July 1966 - BRK Electronics, Inc.: 3 Minutes are worth half a dozen fire engines. The BRK Electronics Fire Detector gives an alarm MINUTES, HOURS; even DAYS earlier . . . Before there is smoke, before there is fire . . . the BRK fire detector picks up the invisible gases of combustion and triggers the alarm. The BRK Electronic Fire Detector is listed by Underwriters Laboratory, the New York Board of Standards and Appeals, the California State Fire Marshal and other fire control organizations throughout the world. 3. May 1972 - SmokeGuard: (Picture of a baby holding a security blanket) COMFORTING but hardly a life saver! Statitrol has a brand new security blanket that helps protect your home and family against the dangers of fire. Operating on the ionization principle, SmokeGuard senses danger - sounds a warning - gives you time to react - before you can even see it or smell it. 4. July 1972 - Honeywell-The Automation Company: Honeywell helps detect fires before they start. The new detectors see unseen particles of combustion . . . in fires incipient stage. The stage where you can do something about it! . . . Before smoke, flames and heat buildup. Before sprinklers are activated. PART 8: THE INCREDIBLY CORRUPT INDIANA DUNES TESTS THE DUNES TESTS PROVED THE DEVICE TO BE A KILLER: The marketing of the ionization devices, with false performance claims being advertised within the NFPA Fire Journal, began during 1965. By the early 1970s the fire officials were deeply involved in promoting and helping to sell the devices. However, by then a great number of failures resulted in deaths and horrible injuries. The fire officials were concerned. As a consequence, during 1974 a fire test program was initiated by the federal government (the National Bureau of Standards which was later renamed the National Institute of Standards and Technology). The fire test program was conducted in Indiana and was called the Indiana Dunes Tests.
The Phase 1 series of tests during 1974 consisted of 40 live fire tests in real homes with nine ionization devices installed during testing. Test No. 2 involved a smoldering fire on a sectional sofa ignited with a charcoal igniter. The times when the ionization devices operated were (in Minutes): 104, 103, 43, 106, 107, 103, 106 and 106. The average time of operation for the ionization devices was approximately 1 hour and 38 minutes. Here are the data for the eighteen smoldering fire tests during Phase 1 of the tests (with 162 chances for an ionization device to operate). 0 detectors operated within 5 minutes; 1 operated within 10 minutes; 28 (out of 162) operated within 30 minutes, and; The average time for the device to operate (when it did operate) was 66 minutes. Now compare these times of operation with the above listed performance claims that appeared within the NFPA publication for 15 years. Before Phase 1 of the test program was completed it became obvious that the ionization device was an instrument of death because it lulled the occupants into a false sense security, yet it frequently remained silent long enough for the fire to kill. THE DUNES TEST ENGINEERS LIED ABOUT THE PERFORMANCES: The engineer in charge of the Dunes Tests, Phase 1, was Mr. Richard Bukowski, an employee of Underwriters Laboratories. For nearly 10 years the manufacturers of the false smoke detector had been selling their devices with the UL Logo displayed. If Mr. Bukowski released the truth regarding the failure of these ionization devices to provide early warning in smoldering fires, Underwriters Laboratories would probably have been sued for certifying the reliability of a device that had already caused thousands of deaths and injuries. Prior to the Dunes Tests, representatives of the NFPA met with Mr Richard Bright of the National Bureau of Standards (NBS). They offered Mr. Bright the chairmanship of the NFPA Code No 74, the standard for fire detection in the home. That standard called for real (photoelectric) smoke detectors in the home for smoldering fires and heat detectors for flaming fires. But first the NFPA reps indicated that the code should be revised to eliminate reliance on heat detectors and that the smoke detector (meaning the ionization device) could provide all the protection needed. Before the Dunes Tests began, Mr. Bright largely completed the rewrite of the code as the NFPA reps requested. Then he was appointed to be the Washington monitor of the Dunes Tests. If the tests proved the changes already made in NFPA 74 were wrong both Mr. Bright and the NFPA would be in difficult positions. Accordingly, the computer generated data (obtained during each test) were divided into sections and so arranged in the rear of the report. Before any analysis of value could be made one would first have to extract the pertinent data for that specific test from the many sections where it was located and put it all together again. I know this was not an easy thing to do because I did it. When Fire Protection Engineers write reports usually (unfortunately) other engineers tend to accept the analysis and not examine the raw data or question the conclusions. Up in the front of the report it was stated: In general, all smoke detectors responded well to all fires. That proved to be one of the deadliest lies ever told. To my knowledge, I am the only fire professional who went behind the (up front) lies, re-organized the basic data and evaluated it. Then I wrote my 1976 Smoke Detector Fraud report and distributed approximately 3,000 copies of it to fire chiefs and fire industry professionals across America. PART 9: EVIDENCE A FIFTH GRADE STUDENT COULD UNDERSTAND THE TESTING CONFIRMED THE PERFORMANCE LIES:
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I have included some of the performance lies advertised within the Fire Journal of the NFPA for 15 years (see part 7, The Performance Lies above). Note that the manufacturers claimed the device would detect any type of potential fire before smoke or flames could be seen. And I have provided the actual times when the devices operated during the Dunes Tests. Here is the contrast: The manufacturers claimed the device would respond to any potential fire before smoke or flames appeared, and; The average time (smoldering fires) for the device to operate exceeded one hour. I say a fifth grade student could figure out that instantaneous and in excess of an hour is not the same. So, why couldnt those high level fire officials within the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) and the fire protection engineers within the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE) figure it out? Indeed, I personally contacted many of them and provided an abundance of technical information to them confirming the defects of the device. I provided, among other things, the smoke detector ads that appeared within the NFPA Fire Journal that advertised blatantly false performance claims. And I provided the data from the testing at the UL test lab and the fire test data from the Dunes Tests, all of which confirmed the performance claims were lies. As stated, the information they had could have been accurately interpreted by a fifth grader. But the IAFC officials and the fire engineers failed to warn the public and actually helped deceive the public by their silent cooperation with the manufacturers. They had a legal DUTY OF CARE to warn the public and bring an end to this fraud. But instead they brought dishonor to their professions. SHOULD FACTORY MUTUAL CONSULT THE 5TH GRADERS? Factory Mutual (FM) is a Highly Protected Risk insurer that has a reputation of having some of the best engineers and researchers on its staff. And it has fire testing facilities to rival Underwriters Laboratories. And, like UL, it certifies products and systems; although the testing laboratories do not like to use the word certify perhaps because the tested systems and devices have been known to fail. The questions that need answers from FM are many, but these three will do: Fifth graders would be able to comprehend that an average time to operate of more than one hour does not equal before smoke or flames appear. Why didnt you guys figure it out and warn the parents before thousands of innocent children were killed or maimed?; Have you conducted smoke detector tests similar to those carried out at at Texas A & M University following several exposs such as WTHR Indianas Deadly Delay, CBS Atlantas Deadly Smoke Detectors, and News Channel 5 Tennessees An Alarming Failure?, and; If not, why not? If yes, why havent you warned the American public? Note: I do not question the intelligence of the FM engineers; I question their integrity. PART 10: ADDITIONAL INVESTIGATIONS PROVE THE DEVICE IS DEADLY THE CAL-CHIEFS TESTS ARE COMPLETED, BUT THE REPORT IS BURIED: The fire department officials did not acknowledge or reply to my 1976, Smoke Detector Fraud report. But apparently they initially took it seriously. Within two years (1978) California fire officials ran a major new fire test program (called the Cal-Chiefs Tests) to evaluate fire detectors. The ionization device again proved to be so unreliable that, following the testing, Chief John Gerard of the Los Angeles Fire Department warned other chiefs that the ionization device would have a 50 to 80 percent failure rate. However, by then the chiefs had been helping to sell the device for more than ten years. By 1978 thousands of deaths had already occurred. To release the results of the Cal-Chiefs tests could have resulted in a major negative impact on the fire services. So the Cal-Chiefs report was buried.
THE IAFCs SMOKE ALARM REPORT: Following the Cal-Chiefs/IAFC fire test program of 1978 (where the tests proved that the device had a horrendously high failure rate), the IAFC published its 1980 report entitled, Residential Smoke Alarm Report. Page 5 contains this statement: So there are two standards - NFPAs No. 74 requiring detectors to react to 4 percent or less smoke obscuration, and a UL standard listing detectors at 7 percent smoked obscuration. Page 6 contains this statement, Further, to be consistent with the NFPA Standard #74, the subcommittee feels it is imperative to detect smoke as early as possible, and so concurs with NFPAs 4 percent or less smoke obscuration level. So as of 1980, the IAFC went on record as recommending smoke detectors must warn: when the smoke reaches 4 percent or less. And these fire officials confirmed that they considered smoke detectors that did not sound until the smoke reached 7 percent to be unsafe. So, that makes me wonder what their reactions would have been if they knew the full truth, that UL was actually allowing the smoke to go as high as 37 percent before activating the alarm and then (according to Richard Bright of NBS) an entire batch would be approved if only half of them sounded. However, it is a moot point because the information within that IAFC report of 1980 was never passed on to the public. It too was buried. Note: The IAFC report is available at: www.TheWorldFireSafetyFoundation.org/iafc THE ENGINEERING REPORT BY WPI AND OTHERS: On January 2, 1986 a fire occurred on the 14th floor of the 52 story Prudential Building in Boston, Massachusetts. For two hours heavy smoke rose up the elevator shafts and directly exposed the socalled smoke detectors in the elevator lobbies on floors 43, 44, 45, 48, 49, 50, 51, and 52. None of the ionization smoke detectors activated. After the fire was controlled the fire inspectors tested these devices and all of them sounded when the usual field test was performed. The obvious conclusion was that the test device usually used by fire inspectors provides the right particulate to cause the device to sound, but smoke from a smoldering fire and aged smoke from a flaming fire do not. Following this fire the Fire Protection Professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), a Deputy Fire Marshal, a Fire Protection Engineer from the Boston Fire Department, and a Fire Marshal from Yale University investigated the fire and the failure of the ionization smoke detectors to activate. They published an excellent report dated June 24, 1986 entitled The Ionization Smoke Detector and Smoke Aging. This report provided scientific evidence of the detection deficiencies of the so-called smoke detector. Thus, it can be said that following that 1986 report there was no valid excuse for the named perpetrators to continue to fail to warn the public of the threat to life posed by a defective warning device. As far as I can determine, after releasing the report to those within the fire regulatory system the engineers at WPI did little further to alert the general public to the endangerment. I consider the silence of the members of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE) to have been a betrayal of the public and a contributing factor in tens of thousands of fire deaths.
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PART 11: THE FIERY DEBATE UNDERWRITERS LABORATORIES (UL) KNEW THE DEVICE WAS A KILLER: On September 25, 1977, the Business Week Magazine published an article titled, The Fiery Debate Over Smoke Alarm Efficiency. This article provides further proof that the above named perpetrators knew that the ionization device was defective more than three decades ago but deliberately withheld the truth from the public while the children continued to burn. The article revealed the following: Richard Bright, Fire Protection Engineer at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) reported that the testing at UL allowed the smoke density from a flaming fire to go as high as 27 percent while the device could pass and be sold with the UL Logo on the device implying reliability (actually, I believe the maximum was 37 percent at the time); Mr. Bright claimed that, UL will certify a given alarm even if half of the units fail the tests.; NBS considered 15 percent smoke obscuration too great for safe exiting; Ulysses J. Brualdi, ADTs product marketing manager, correctly stated that they (ionization detectors) respond to invisible particles of combustion, not visible smoke; Brualdi also said, Thus an ionization detector that goes off at 4 percent smoke when it is 2 feet from a fire might not blow the horn until 20 percent smoke when it is 10 feet away; Mr. George Saunders, ULs Managing Engineer stated that, some present models are not capable of meeting the requirements (so, why were they carrying the UL Label?); Mr. Saunders confirmed that UL was considering a new and stricter test for flaming fires, possibly with a maximum allowed smoke density of 7 percent (however, the last time I checked the limit at UL was 37 percent for flaming fires, obviously deadly), and; Donald F. Steel, president of Electro Signal, a maker of photoelectric type smoke detectors, reported that he had conducted actual fire tests with persons present in the room with the smoke and that when the smoke reached 4 percent everyone was choking and running for the door. The Business Week report was published in 1977, over three decades and tens of thousands of needless deaths and injuries ago. This report establishes the fact that the inherent problems with the ionization type so-called smoke detector had been well documented and known by the fire industry in 1977. However, UL did not and still have not (as at the time of writing this article - May 2010), made the discussed corrections in their smoke alarm standards testing (UL217). The NFPA never made the needed corrections in their codes. Both the fire engineers and the fire service officials helped cover-up the fraud for more than three decades after the scope of the dishonesty became known, despite thousands of needless fire deaths and injuries every year.
Note: - The Business Week article will be e-mailed upon request: rmpatton@surewest.net More information about ULs fraudulent testing of smoke alarms, their claims to correct their flawed Smoke Alarm standard (UL217), and their failure to do so, is at: www.TheWorldFireSafetyFoundation.org/ul Standards Australia has acknowledged that the Australian Standard for smoke alarms (AS3786) was flawed and has corrected/rewritten the standard: www.TheWorldFireSafetyFoundation.org/sa
PART 12: THE DEADLIEST BETRAYAL IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICA FIRE OFFICIALS BETRAY THE PEOPLE: Even before the 1974-1976 Indiana Dunes Tests research program was conducted, many fire chiefs in America had doubts about the ionization device. There cannot be thousands upon thousands of failures of a theoretical life saving device with officials remaining oblivious to the problem. After the Dunes Tests were completed, its true the engineers lied about the results. But those fire officials from the
IAFC who witnessed the testing knew that it was dangerously defective. The failures had been obvious during the testing. Then I published my 1976 Smoke Detector Fraud report and distributed 3,000 copies to fire officials and fire engineers. Next, the fire chiefs ran their own tests during 1978. Thats when the person in charge of the testing, John Gerard, the Fire Chief of Los Angeles began giving talks warning other fire chiefs that the device would have a 50 to 80 percent failure rate in the field. Chief Gerard worked with the fire chief of Salt Lake City to create a video to warn fire officials and the public of the problems with ionization smoke alarms. Also, an IAFC committee had been appointed to study the problem. This committees findings resulted in the IAFCs 1980, Residential Smoke Alarm Report which warned of the defective nature of the device. Keep in mind that all this is but a partial listing of the evidence that was available confirming that a phony smoke detector was resulting in tens of thousands of fire deaths and injuries. But, the information was kept in-house. The public was not privy to the information. THE PRUDENTIAL BUILDING FIRE: In addition, following the Prudential Building fire of 1986, (where ionization detectors on eight floors were subjected to thick smoke for over two hours without operating) the engineers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (and others) created a comprehensive explanation of the technical reasons why the device cannot safely warn of smoldering fires. What was needed from the engineers was more than to simply publish a report, pat themselves on the back for their findings and then go back to sleep. What were needed were engineers who had the integrity and the courage to defy the NFPA power plays and to use their knowledge and credentials to bring about corrective actions. Not only did the engineers fail to take a stand against the corruption, many of them undermined my efforts to alert the fire chiefs and the public. I believe that if as many as 5 percent of the fire protection engineers in this country had had the integrity and the courage to tell the public the truth about this abomination, tens of thousands of lives would have been saved. Why did the Worcester Polytechnic Engineers first discover and define a problem that was so deadly, especially to small children, and then put the report on the back burner, torn off the gas, and allow thousands to die that could have been saved. Was it because the FPEs were so deeply involved (by the time they realized it was all a scam) that they feared the consequences of telling the public the truth? Was it to protect their jobs? The fire engineers were engineering in accordance with the dictates of the NFPA codes. Did they rely so much on the codes as crutches for their work that they feared to engineer without the crutches? It appears the codes had become their only expertise. So, when engineering fundamentals and ordinary logic were at odds with the NFPA codes, apparently the codes were their security blankets. Then there were the fire engineering consultants who worked for the fire insurers. There were no doubts among those. Hire them to prove that water will run uphill; they will prove if the money is right. They were called hired guns. I called them whores. PART 13: DO AUTHORITIES KNOW IONIZATION ALARMS ARE DEFECTIVE? Quotes from authorities confirming awareness of the deadly defects of ionization smoke alarms:
John C. Gerard, Fire Chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department cited national statistics showing battery powered devices have a 50 to 80 percent failure rate. Source: Fire Chief Magazine, January, 1980. Smoke detectors were an unknown term to 99 percent of the population 10 years ago. Today, millions of single family dwellings have them, yet there is no reduction in loss of life from fire. This paradox has not been explained.
Source: Fire Chief Magazine, January, 1980.
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We put 50 million smoke detectors in buildings in America in a two year period and our fire loss and death rate goes up. Were having a little trouble explaining these things.
Source: Gordon Vickery, former head of the U.S. Fire Admin, Fire Engineering Magazine, September, 1980.
Promotion and advertising (of ionization smoke alarms) is misleading the Fire Chief and the public . . . lives may be in danger.
Source: IAFC Residential Smoke Alarm Report September 1980, page 2. Residential fire death rate increases nearly 20 percent over 1984 residential death
rate with over 100 million smoke detectors installed in American homes.
Source: NFPA Fire Journal, November 1986, page 44.
The following quotes expose the truth about ionization smoke alarms:
I have often been cautioned that I should be quiet, because we do not want the public to lose faith in smoke detectors. This statement implies that lives will be lost if we we tell the American public the truth. I think the exact opposite is true . . . How many lives have been lost because the American public was not told the truth?
Source: Deputy Chief, Jay Fleming, Boston Fire Department, in an extract from a letter to the US Fire Administration, October, 2006. From The CAN Report February, 2007, page 6.
The average person buys a smoke alarm, in the genuine belief that, before their house fills with smoke from a smoldering fire, they will be given sufficient warning to safely escape; regrettably this is absolutely NOT what will happen if they rely on an ionization smoke alarm.
Source: David Isaac, Standards Australia Committee FP002 from the report, New Zealand Fire Service - Saving Face or Saving Lives? May, 2006. page 4 .
That all residential accommodation be fitted with photoelectric smoke alarms . . . Ionization smoke alarms may not operate in time to alert occupants early enough to escape from smoldering fires.
Source: Australasian Fire & Emergency Services Authority Councils Position on Smoke Alarms in Residential Accommodation, 01 July, 2006, page 3.
A smoke detector that sounds approximately 19 minutes after smoke reached its sensing chamber is like an airbag that does not deploy until 19 minutes after a car accident.
Source: The Hon David Schoenthaler, Mercer vs BRK, (04/98), from The Can Report, Feb, 2007, page 9.
We have five million smoke detectors in this state that are ionization smoke detectors, that may fail in the time of need.
Source: Indiana State Fire Marshal, Roger Johnson, September, 2007.
Nationally the percentage of people dying when the smoke detector works, but works too late is 40 percent.
Source: Deputy Chief Jay Fleming, Boston Fire Department, Massachusetts, December, 2007.
Weve got outdated (ionization) technology that does not work.

Source: Mike Turner, State Representative, Tennessee, March, 2008.
Americans are using unsafe and inadequate smoke detectors.

Source: Senator John Kerry, Massachusetts, USA, from his letter to the CPSC, June, 2008.
Early warning is the key to surviving smoldering fires - the deadliest kind of home fire. Ionization-only smoke detectors ... are slow to warn if they warn at all of smoldering fires, which typically occur while occupants are sleeping.
Source: Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, Massachusetts, USA, from the class action law suit document, Class Action Complaint And Jury Demand - Introduction, June, 2008 page 1, para 2.
It is truly alarming . . . it is so stunning and so horrifying and it is So hard to believe that its something the people just dont know.
More quotes on next page . . .

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Source: Courtney Stewart, Senior Editor, The Hook, Charlottesville, VA, July, 2008.
The New Zealand Safety Councils position is that ionization smoke alarms be banned from sale in New Zealand.
Source: David Calvert, Executive Director NZSC, from the NZSCs Smoke Alarm Report, July, 2008.
Using better (photoelectric) smoke alarms will drastically reduce the loss of life among citizens and firefighters.
Source: Harold Schaitberger, President the International Association of Fire Fighters, October, 2008.
Its time to warn the public that almost everyones smoke alarms are dangerously defective.
Source: Adrian Butler, Chairman, The World Fire Safety Foundation from, The Volunteer Fire Fighter Magazine, October, 2009, page 34.
We are asking everyone to consider replacing their current Ionization Smoke Detector(s) with Photoelectric Detector(s). Studies have shown that Ionization Smoke Detectors have a failure rate over 55 percent of the time in smoldering fires.
Source: Captain Mark Walsh, Colerain Fire Department, Ohio, in an, Urgent Message From Your Fire Department, sent to Condo & Apartment Associations, 04 December, 2009.
If you think the smoke detector you have in your home will save your life if theres a fire, you could be deadly wrong. Firefighters say almost one out of every two people who die in a house fire die when theres a working smoke detector in the home.
Source: Jennifer Mayerle, CBS Atlantas, Emmy Award Winning Journalist. From the Deadly Smoke Detectors Expos, Atlanta, Georgia, October, 2009 ~ February, 2010, page 7.
Here is what is ironic. We are the greatest technological nation on Earth. We can have troops on the other side of the globe and a soldier can be pinned down under enemy fire and radio for help. We have the capacity to surgically send a missile to take out the threat against the against the soldier. However, we knowingly let people go to sleep at night with a product we call a smoke alarm that has trouble detecting smoke. What is shameful is that good people have been alerting us to this problem for decades and it has been intentionally ignored.
Source: Dean Dennis, Co-Founder, Fathers for Fire Safety from an email sent to CBS Atlanta about their Deadly Smoke Detectors expos, 11 March, 2010.
Given the weight of evidence surrounding the efficiency of different smoke alarm types, it is not enough that standards, regulatory, and fire safety organisations recommend photoelectric smoke alarms - they have a duty of care to warn the public of the known, life-threatening limitations of ionization smoke alarms.
Source: Karl Westwell, Co-Founder, CEO, The World Fire Safety Foundation October, 2008. From The Key Report, 12 April, 2010, page 15.
PART 14: IT WOULD BE NICE IF SMOKE DETECTORS DETECTED SMOKE A FIRE MARSHAL TESTS THE SMOKE DETECTOR: Las Vegas fire inspectors were at a local grade school preparing to examine the smoke detector system for the heating/cooling system. The heating/cooling system was of serious concern if a fire occurred. If for example, a fire started in the library, smoke from that localized fire would be pulled back through the return air duct to the furnace and the smoke would be redistributed throughout the school via the supply ducts. All of a sudden smoke would be pouring out of the air vents in all the classrooms and the corridors, which would panic the children. However, the problem could be solved with a smoke detector in the return air duct. When the smoke reached the smoke detector it would activate, the
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blower would stop and an evacuation alarm would sound. The corridors would remain clear and the children could all leave safely. Dan Quinan, the Nevada State Fire Marshal was present at the school along with the local fire inspectors. He was not welcome because the Las Vegas fire inspectors believed they did not need big brother down from Carson City. And what really annoyed them was the crazy way he wanted to test the smoke detector. Dan had two big metal garbage cans placed inside the school and put some paper and combustibles inside. He lit the fires allowing real smoke to be pulled into the return air duct. Testing smoke detectors with real fires inside the building producing real smoke; my God what a crazy idea that was. The Las Vegas inspectors never heard of such a stupid way to test a smoke detector. So the fires were lit. The blower sucked the smoke back past the smoke detector and the blower just kept on running. Soon smoke was pouring out all the ducts throughout the school. Dan Quinan was not pleased with the performance of that smoke detector inside the duct. But no one else was happy either. The inspectors were furious that this guy, originally out of Pasadena, California no less, came down to their big city with his cockamamie testing methods. He was making the Vegas fire inspectors look bad in front of all the teachers. The contractor was screaming foul, this is not the way to test a smoke detector. The installer wanted his money and now here was this guy with garbage cans and fires inside the school. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. The principal was complaining that the smoke was fouling up the school. How do we get rid of the smell? The teachers were upset; the children should be inside studying, not outside running around. Only the children thought that things were cool. This is nonsense. said the contractor. Here watch this. He pulled out his trusty spray can. He pointed the nozzle at the smoke detector, pushed the plunger down and in less than a second later the smoke detector activated. The blower shut down. That little spray can had the look of a bug spray. But right there on the label in big letters it said, SMOKE DETECTOR TESTER. If it says, SMOKE DETECTOR TESTER, that ought to be the way to test a smoke detector, right? Everyone should know that, right? And right there, right on the can was the UL (Underwriters Laboratory) logo. And the smoke detector itself also came with the UL label. And the contractor had installed the system in full accordance with the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) code. What more could any reasonable man want? (So, when the fire inspector goes into a home today and sprays that phony detector on the ceiling with the smoke detector tester it will operate. Then he assures the lady of the house that all is well and your children will be safe). Well, for a while it was a nasty situation. Dan Quinan, the State Fire Marshal, insisted that a smoke detector should be able to detect real smoke. But that is not what the codes said. The code required an installation as per the fire code and when the official smoke detector tester caused the ionization device to operate, then everything was fine. Why couldnt that guy from Carson City follow the rules? Eventually, the Las Vegas fire officials and the casino bosses prevailed. Dan, the State Fire Marshal, was told to stay out of Las Vegas. They did not need his advice. But Dan was a man who believed that code compliance was not enough. He truly believed that a smoke detector should be able to detect real (visible) smoke. That was a novel concept within the fire regulatory field. One day his honesty and concerns would cost him his job. PART 15: IS YOUR FIRE INSPECTOR A KILLER? THEY ROUTINELY CERTIFY A KILLING DEVICE AS SAFE: Many fire departments distribute ionization smoke detectors for free to low income neighborhoods. This distribution of a killing device represents an endorsement of the device and cooperation with
those who manufacture them. A relationship between the manufacturers and the high level fire officials of the IAFC is obvious. The influence of the IAFC on the fire chiefs throughout America is strong. By distributing the devices the government fire officials actually are certifying that the device will warn in time of danger BEWARE: THE FIRE INSPECTOR PROBABLY DOES NOT KNOW: It is not unusual for fire inspectors to visit apartment houses and mobile home parks (and sometimes single family homes) to test smoke detectors. The inspector will use that smoke detector tester described above and give the ionization device a shot of vaporizing spray. It is the perfect vapor to cause the device to sound. Your smoke detector is just fine, the inspector will assure the lady of the house, and your children will be safe. However, because the phony smoke detector sounds only when the right stuff enters it does not mean that it will sound when the wrong stuff enters. The wrong stuff is real (visible) smoke from a real fire. THE COVER-UP: When fires occur at night and occupants are sleeping, the smoke and toxic gases build up slowly. The smoke may be localized but the deadly gases spread throughout the home in accordance with the gas laws. That means that the occupants will soon be breathing invisible, deadly combustion gases. The ionization device cannot detect visible smoke or invisible gases and so the device fails to warn. The parents may survive but the children, who are more at risk, are often killed or maimed. Of course, the reporters want to know why. So the fire department PR person frequently states that the smoke alarm batteries were dead or missing. The fire official is the expert, so the reporters do not check with the survivors. After all, who will be believed, the expert or the befuddled occupants? Since 1970 I would estimate that there have been millions of failures of the ionization device to warn of smoke. As far as I am aware, for over three decades, a fire department PR person has never yet reported that the ionization device failed to warn because it cannot detect smoke.
Note: In the late 1990s, Adrian Butler (Australia) and Karl Westwell (New Zealand), discovered the problem with ionization smoke detectors. They also discovered that the Australian Standard for smoke detectors was dangerously flawed. After they took their concerns to the appropriate authorities and were ignored, they created The World Fire Safety Foundation to bring awareness and change to the flawed Standards testing of ionization smoke detectors globally. In 2006 they developed a simple but incredibly powerful demonstration to show how ionization smoke detectors would not safely activate in real-world, smouldering fires. After the Foundations Aquarium Test resulted in live fire testing of ionization detectors in Australia, New Zealand and across America, the truth about their deadly defects began to be exposed around the world. The Aquarium Test, conducted by one of Americas leading investigative journalists, is on the Foundations home page at: www.TheWorldFireSafetyFoundation.org Thanks to the work of the Foundation, the Australian Smoke Alarm Standard has been corrected/rewritten and is pending adoption into Australian law and Fire Services in Australia and New Zealand have joined the push to mandate photoelectric smoke detectors. I am increasingly hopeful that the ionization smoke detector fraud will be fully exposed and the Foundations mission will soon be realized, to Stop The Children Burning.
THE DOUBLE DOSE OF REMORSE: When parents lose children to fire it is an incredibly devastating blow. Added to the loss is self blame. The parents torture themselves by trying to determine what they could have done that they failed to do. Then when the fire department PR person (to protect the local fire department) claims the batteries were dead (or missing), the assumption is that the carelessness of the parents was a contributing cause of the deaths. This routine shifting of the cause from defective detector to dead or missing
batteries can destroy a marriage, it can destroy a parent, and it is a terrible extra burden on those who suffer. PART 16: WHEN RECOMMENDING SPRINKLERS COULD COST A JOB RECOMMENDING SPRINKLERS FOR A HOTEL: That not-very-friendly relationship between Dan Quinan, the Nevada State Fire Marshal, and the fire officials of Las Vegas continued for a few years and then Dan did what his enemies were waiting for. He really went out on a limb in a big way. The MGM Grand Hotel was under construction. It would be the largest hotel in the world, or so they said. And it would be by code a FIREPROOF HOTEL. Wow, how wonderful! The walls and floors were to be made from steel, concrete and gypsum, all fireproofing materials. Obviously a fireproof hotel could not burn. And here comes Fire Marshal Dan Quinan with another one of his cockamamie ideas. He said that a fire sprinkler system should be installed throughout the hotel. He wanted a fire sprinkler system in a fireproof hotel! What was wrong with that guy? Everyone knew that fireproof buildings do not burn. After all, isnt that what fireproof means? So, finally Dan went beyond the pale. Now they had him. The last legislative session of the term was winding down about 3:00am. All the reporters were sound asleep. They voted him out of office. Dan Quinan, the thorn in the side of the fire experts in Las Vegas, would never bother them again. Install a sprinkler system throughout that fireproof MGM Grand Hotel, my God what a crazy idea that was! But 85 innocent civilians died when the MGM Grand Hotel burned. Perhaps of even more significance, about 5,000 occupants were trapped above the fire for the duration of the fire. If the fire fighters had been unable to finally control that enormous fire, over 5,000 could have easily died. The exits for a high rise would be classed as a joke, except it is no joke when thousands are at risk due to fire regulatory corruption. PART 17: PROMPT CONTROL THE EARLY FIRE IS DISCOURAGED UNOFFICIAL POLICY: ONLY THE PROFESSIONALS MAY FIGHT THE FIRE: Controlling the fire is the job of the paid firefighters. That is the unofficial policy that has been promoted for years. Frequently the public is told, do not fight the fire, it is too dangerous. Just get outside and call the firefighters. They know how to do it. Note that this concept fits well with the NFPA codes that virtually banned sprinklers in homes for more than 50 years. It also fits the policy of promoting phony smoke detectors for homes while banning (by code) those that are far more reliable. This concept of not controlling the fire promptly when it first initiates fits well with the fire insurers profit motives. A huge fire loss creates a huge cash flow into the insuring system. Granted, it is difficult to believe that the NFPA fire code system could be so corrupt that the burning of America is promoted by code. But an honest and thorough analysis of the codes will confirm the premise as valid. Note that the magnification of the fire problem is the inevitable result of putting phony smoke detectors into 80 million homes. THE ELECTRIC SHOCK SCARE: Another way to prevent the control of the early fire by the occupants is to give the public inadequate fire control equipment. A fog nozzle on a small diameter hose installed in the home would be a magical suppressor of the early fire. Of course, to be most effective, reliable fire detectors also are essential. The warning must come while the fire is still small and easy to control. Firefighters are equipped with fog nozzles that are Underwriters Laboratory approved for use on transformer banks and electrical stations with hundreds of thousands of volts. High voltage current will not flow back along the fog because there are air gaps between the drops.
But a fog nozzle has never been made available for a small hose for the amateur firefighter for in home use. And repeatedly the public has been warned that water spray must not be used in the home where the voltage is 110 volts. Also, the public is warned that water cannot be used on flammable liquids but the amount and type of flammables normally in a home would be a triviality to a water fog application. Granted, water spray will not control a gasoline fire but gasoline should be located in the garage within a proper container or outdoors. THE KITCHEN FIRE: Warnings about the use of water for control of kitchen fires is also a ruse to convince the public that water spray is dangerous to use in the home. Note that the one type of fire detector (ionization type smoke detector) cannot be installed in the kitchen because the false alarming would be incessant. So, the kitchen, which is the room which produces the most fires, is devoid of fire detection and the best fire control device. If a frying pan is burning the simple solution is to put a lid on it. But if a person directed a fog nozzle at it from say ten feet away, the fire would be extinguished and the mess would be minor compared to a gutted house. When the fog nozzle would be most needed is when the fire in the pan has jumped to the cabinets above the stove and some real fire control muscle is needed. Another simple and inexpensive solution to the kitchen fire would be to run a pipe up from the cold water connection and install a 212 or a 286 degree F. inch sprinkler on the inch copper pipe. A huigh temperature sprinkler that would emit a fine drop spray under fire conditions would be a life saver and with a high temperature sprinkler it would be immune to normal heat from cooking. AN EXAMPLE OF A KITCHEN FIRE: One of the tragic fire reports I received involved a woman who put her four young children to bed upstairs and laid down on the living room sofa for a well earned rest. But she forgot she had a pot on the burner with some food cooking. The water boiled off, the food ignited and by the time the lady woke up the kitchen cabinets were well involved. Smoke was pouring up the open stairway and the lady could not reach her kids. She ran next door to call the fire department but, for whatever reason the response was very late. The kids were leaning out the upstairs window screaming for help but a prompt responding policeman blocked the door and would not allow anyone to enter. The conditions were already too dangerous. All four children perished as the frantic mother prayed for fire fighters to arrive. I say that lady would have been well served by a heat detector in the kitchen ceiling and a fog nozzle and hose to control a fire. Of course, a simple sprinkler on a pipe from the cold water tap would have been perfect. BEWARE THOSE EXPENSIVE HOSE STATIONS: The hose stations in high rise buildings, office buildings, schools, apartment houses and similar buildings are essentially useless to the non professional fire fighter. They hose is 1-1/2 inch size and it requires two or more professional firefighters to handle it. When pressurized it is extremely difficult to handle and to move about. It has to be pulled completely off the rack before the water is turned on, otherwise the water will not flow. Then, with one man at the business end and one at the valve, when the valve is opened the high pressure water will rush through the hose to the inexperienced man with the nozzle in his hands. As the water flows the hose stiffens possibly unbalancing the man. Then, when the high pressure water hits the nozzle the reaction can tear the nozzle right out of the amateurs hands. Then it will flail about and perhaps hit the good Samaritan in his head and knock his brains out. Fortunately, the average person must sense that the hose is for profits and show only; so it is rarely used and almost never effective in the hands of the untrained. The firefighters will not use that hose because it may be old, rotted and unsafe. The firefighters bring their own hose. So why are these stations mandated by NFPA code? They are mandated by code because they are profitable to sell. And, perhaps most importantly, they are a substitute for useful and effective size hose. PART 18: THE CRIME OF SILENCE
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DID FIRE ENGINEERS HELP KILL CHILDREN? Everything that I am revealing regarding the smoke detector fraud was known to the fire engineers many years ago. The professional engineers (who are the members of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers - SFPE) are the technically trained fire professional. And they did not even have to analyze the fire test data and technicalities of the smoke detector fraud. I put it all down on paper and gave it to them on that proverbial silver platter. It was impossible for the engineers to not realize the device was a scam. During 1976 I published and distributed 3,000 copies of my Smoke Detector Fraud report. Of course, I followed up that 1976 report with many more notifications, articles, lectures etc. I did everything short of standing on top of a tall building with a megaphone shouting out to the world that the so-called smoke detector was phony and deadly. And if that was not enough to penetrate their brain cells, the WPI report following the Prudential Building fire ten years later in 1986 should have done the trick. But the NFPA was in the cover-up mode and it seems that maintaining good relations with the NFPA was more important than protecting the children. As professional and state government certified engineers they had a legal DUTY OF CARE responsibility to protect the public. Think of this scenario; here are corrupt manufacturers of phony smoke detectors defrauding the public and as a result, tens of thousands of small children are killed and horribly mutilated by fire. And what do the engineers who have the responsibility to protect the children do? They help the corrupt businesses that are selling the phony device cover-up the crimes. Years ago, I was a charter member of the SFPE. But dropped out because I was disgusted with the SFPE policy of expediency, rather than honesty. Michael Fortier failed to tell the authorities that Timothy McVeigh was planning to bomb the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The bomb killed 168 people. So, for failing to report a potential crime Mr. Fortier was sentenced to 12 years in prison. The engineers within the SFPE, with very few exceptions, helped cover-up the smoke detector crimes. This went well beyond failing to report a crime. The engineers were recommending the devices, ignoring the deaths and promoting the idea that the inherently flawed ionization device would protect the people under conditions where they would not. PART 19: HOW THE SYSTEM WORKS EXPLOITING FIRE DISASTERS: A number of years ago I attended a meeting in Reno, Nevada. An NFPA representative was giving a critique on a hotel fire where a large number of people died. Long before that fire occurred, the NFPA had been promoting the idea that any person trapped in a fire should crawl out below the smoke to safety. Following the hotel fire it was discovered that a young lady did indeed crawl along the corridor to exit the building. The NFPA saw this survivor as a confirmation of the wisdom of their crawl out promotions. So, the representative told her story stressing that she was a bright young and athletic gal with the implication that she lived because she followed the advice of the NFPA. Of course, it was anyones guess as to whether she would have escaped just as well, perhaps even more safely, if she ran out fast instead of crawling out slow. One thing for sure, if you are still within the building when flashover occurs and black smoke at a thousand degrees F. comes down the corridor toward you, you better be moving fast. But, what concerned me more was the clear implication that if those who had died followed this NFPA strategy for survival, probably they too might have lived. This was typical NFPA, using a deadly fire to promote the NFPA. And the implication was dead wrong. Those who died in that hotel were trapped within a meeting room when a flash fire from a non-sprinklered basement raced up an open
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stairway and down the non-sprinkler protected corridor, completely blocking exits from the meeting room before most could react. Those trapped made every possible effort to escape including throwing chairs at the large windows to be able to leap to safety. But the speed of the flashover fire killed many before they could escape. It was the anti-sprinkler policies and corrupted sprinkler design codes of the NFPA that resulted in near 100 percent of the Life at Risk type properties (including hotels) being devoid of sprinklers. If the building had been sprinklered the victims would have lived. Even though sprinklers were not installed in that hotel, if the building at least had been equipped with a reliable fire detection system, the victims probably would have had a warning in time to escape prior to being trapped by a major flashover fire. A LADY WHO CRAWLED: The fire problem with apartments is that often the window is too high above ground to exit and the path from the bedroom to the exit door is via the living room adjoining the kitchen. Thus the exit path is through the area most likely to become deadly very quickly in a fire. Then add in the fact that the NFPA gave the American public a phony (ionization) smoke detector to warn the sleeping occupant of the fire. I received a report on a fire one time where the lady, trapped in an apartment bedroom, crawled through the fire area to the door and escaped. The lady next door who answered the victims desperate screams and banging said that the victims back was actually on fire when she opened the door (radiant heat from the super-hot ceiling). And, as she crawled her hands were sinking into a carpet than was so hot that it was becoming plastic and sticking to her hands. The lady had a job that required typing and her fingers were burned to the bone. She never regained full use of them again. Her job skills were taken away from her. So, would this victim had been better off to grab a blanket from her bed, drape it over her head, take a deep breath and then hold her breath as she bent low and moved fast through the fire area to the door? Probably the exposed time would have been less than ten seconds. Of course second guessing has no real value relative a panic situation where calm analysis is unlikely. But I can say this with certainty; because the NFPA helped put phony smoke detectors into 80 million homes an enormous number of victims have paid for this fraud with their lives, or in the case of the lady above, maimed for life. THE NFPA CORRUPTION CAUSES REPETITIVE FIRES: The problem with the NFPA strategy of using disasters to promote the NFPA is that the true causes of the disasters must be concealed so that the phony solutions can be exploited. If it can be predicted, then it can be prevented! So why has not the NPFA learned? The end result is that over many decades the same fires repeat. For example, here are a few of the disasters of like kind resulting from similar defective NFPA fire code policies: 1903 - 602 dead. Iroquois Theatre Fire - Chicago; 1908 - 170 dead. Rhodes Opera House Fire - Pennsylvania; 1908 - 175 dead. Lakeview Grammar School Fire - Ohio; 1911 - 145 dead. Triangle Shirtwaist Fire - New York; 1940 - 207 dead. Rhythm Club Fire - Mississippi; 1942 - 492 dead. Cocoanut Grove Fire - Boston; 1946 - 119 dead. Winecoff Hotel Fire - Atlanta;
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1958 - 95 dead.
Lady of Angels School Fire - Chicago;
1963 - 63 dead. Golden Age Nursing Home Fire - Missouri; 1977 - 165 dead. Beverly Hills Supper Club Fire - Kentucky, and; 2003 -100 dead. Station Nightclub Fire - Rhode Island. Note that all of these fires happened within a place of assembly and for decades the NFPA not only did not require sprinklers in places of assembly, but the codes were structured to make it extremely and unnecessarily costly to protect these buildings. It is beyond reasonable doubt that every one of these fires could have been controlled promptly with virtually no casualties if the NFPA had not created codes that effectively prevented proper fire protection from being installed in these buildings. TWO REASONS FOR RIGGING TESTS TO DISCREDIT HEAT DETECTORS: During the Indiana Dunes Tests the engineers deliberately rigged the tests to justify removing heat detectors from the NFPA code so that phony smoke detector could under-protect homes. But there was a second objective to the rigging of the tests to discredit heat detectors. The fire sprinkler system is a near 100 percent guarantee that the building will not burn and the occupants will not die. But the NFPA for decades had been able to prevent fire sprinkler systems from being installed into close to 100 percent of all buildings constructed. Only the high valued, high hazard, buildings that the insurance industry wanted to be protected were sprinklered. Therefore, the manufacturers of the ionization device saw another market (besides homes) to be exploited. Full page ads were placed in the NFPA Fire Journal promoting smoke detectors as an alternate to sprinkler for those properties not normally sprinkler protected. The false concept that heat detectors (sprinkler heads) would not operate to apply water until after fire deaths (due to the smoke) would have already occurred was a central theme. FIXED TEMPERATURE HEAT DETECTORS ARE THE BEST FOR THE FLAMING FIRE: The fixed temperature heat detector is best for detecting the fast growing fire that produces temperatures well above a thousand degrees F. Actual fire tests in real homes have proven that a flaming ignition of one upholstered chair or sofa can proceed to a room flashover condition in as little as three or four minutes. Once flashover has occurred, conditions throughout a home turn deadly so rapidly that escape is often impossible. The manufacturers of the ionization device, in an effort to diminish the importance of the heat detector and exaggerate the value of the ionization device, promoted the idea that 75 percent of all fires develop as smoldering fires. They falsely claimed that the smoldering fire (best detected by a smoke detector) was responsible for nearly all fire deaths. These were just some more lies by businesses that depended on lies to sell their products. The truth is nearly all fire deaths are the result of flaming fires and the heat detector is without peer when it comes to reliably warning of the fast and deadly flaming fire. A complete fire detection system consisting of heat detectors throughout a home and smoke detectors in rooms where there is a serious potential for a smoldering fire (bedrooms and living rooms at least) will likely reduce fire deaths by an excess of 90 percent, possibly 95 percent. During 1959 an article by T. Seddon Duke, a fire sprinkler company executive, publishe (in The Rostrum, a fire safety publication) that ADT Central Station monitored fire sprinkler systems produced a reliability of fire control record of 99.98 percent over the previous 34 years. This was amazingly
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close to a 100 percent cure for the fire problem. And that was with the old, extremely slow to operate sprinkler. When Grinnell, years ago developed their fast acting sprinkler they advertised that it was up to ten times faster than their old industrial sprinkler. And, because a heat detector does not emit water whereas a heat detector operated sprinkler does, it is obvious that a heat detector can be faster to operate than Grinnells fast acting sprinkler. So, the claim that a heat detector will not operate in time to protect lives is ludicrous. But, the heat detector is for protection vs. the flaming fire. The true smoke detector is the needed protection for the smoldering, smoky fire. TESTING HEAT DETECTORS WITHOUT HEAT DETECTORS: The heat detector as the trigger for the fire sprinkler system had a near perfect record of preventing loss of life for nearly a hundred years. Therefore, there was no way that an honest test program could prove that heat detectors should be removed from the NFPA code because they were unreliable. And it is the fast and extremely deadly fire where the heat detector is most needed. So, the challenge for the corrupt engineers who ran the Dunes Tests was to prove that heat detectors would routinely fail to warn of the dangerous hot and fast fire. Here are the three ways the Dunes Tests were falsified to prove heat detectors would fail to warn of the fast growing flaming fire. First, when smoldering fires that produced no heat were conducted the engineers concluded those were failures Secondly, the engineers ran some flaming fires that grew so slow and produced so little heat that the ceiling temperatures did not rise to the operating temperature of the heat detector (135 degrees F.). These were considered failures. The third method of proving that heat detectors would fail was to run flaming fires without installing heat detectors. Well, one cannot argue against that logic, if no heat detector is installed, none will sound a warning. During the 76 tests of the Dunes Tests, only one test was conducted with a fixed temperature heat detector in the fire room when a fire raised the ceiling temperature above 200degrees F. within ten minutes of ignition. During that one somewhat honest test (still a very slow developing fire) the heat detector performed perfectly. Amazingly the corrupt engineers running the Dunes tests stated, up front in the published report that the heat detector failed to respond to most fires. The falsification of the Indiana Dunes Tests report has played a key role in the needless deaths and maiming of tens of thousands of children. PART 20: EMPOWERING THE FIRE INSPECTORS THE CODE IS THEIR EXPERTISE: When a fire department plan reviewer, who may have only a high school education, enters a building construction meeting for a hospital, high rise or airport terminal, he will have to bend architects, engineers and building construction managers to his will. He may be the least experienced person in the room regarding engineering and construction matters. After all, his profession is firefighting, not engineering, not construction. These can be highly technical matters. But the inspector/plan reviewer will have two extremely powerful allies entering with him. One will be a complete set of NFPA codes, more than a thousand dollars worth of them. His second ally will be the law. It is a tough combination to beat. The NFPA fire codes are, to a very large degree, the technical expertise of the fire services. I am not knocking the use of codes by government. The codes are useful and necessary tools. However, when the codes are dishonest that is another thing. Because the code is essential to the fire services, perhaps this is part of the reasons why a deadly type smoke detector remained in service for so many years after it was proven to be so deadly. There is a natural tendency for the fire services to defend the code because it is a needed tool of the job. But, I say there was no good excuse for the fire officials at the top levels of the IAFC because there is no reasonable excuse for allowing children to burn. The high level officials were fully aware of the
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dangers and the reasons for the failures and the deaths. But they decided to hide the facts from the rank and fire firefighter and by so doing they condemned many thousands to terrible deaths and injuries. hs
PART 21: CIRCUMVENTING THE ANTITRUST LAWS WHY BIG BUSINESS LOVES THE NFPA: Probably the number one reason why big business will send a representatives on a three thousand mile plane trip and pay hotel costs in five star hotels; and operate a hospitality suite in order to input an NFPA code, is because it is a magical way to defeat the antitrust laws. The fire insurance industry was allowed under law to price fix (rating bureaus). So the insurers thought it would be nice if their allies had the same rights. The fire insurers created the NFPA to produce fire codes that (supposedly) save lives. So, top executives of an industry, such as the fire sprinkler industry could go to the NFPA meetings and discuss the goal of making the world safe from fire. And if by chance they created a code that made it near impossible for competitors to enter the market, well it was all for the good of humanity. Probably no business has worked the schemes for eliminating competition and controlling prices (via the fire codes) better than sprinkler industry, (however, the smoke detector manufacturers have manipulated the fire codes to their advantage pretty well too). From 1896 until into the 1960s there was never any significant challenge to the incredibly corrupt sprinkler codes and the love fest between the pipe fitters union and major sprinkler firms. The handful of sprinkler firms maintained an iron hand on the marketplace nationwide. Because prices could be controlled for the most part, the pipe fitters had special perks and high pay. By mandating large size iron pipe systems, ungodly priced UL listed fire pumps, and water supplies rivaling Lake Michigan, the few sprinkler companies effectively barred the plumbers and other potential competitors from the marketplace. Only iron pipe (noted for being extremely subject to internal corrosion) was permitted for the work. Plumbers mainly dealt with copper because it was superior pipe. Plastic was not permitted even though it could be obtained with a higher temperature rating then the iron pipe (neoprene gaskets in mechanical fittings were allowed). If a pipe fitter became proficient, could he go into the sprinkler business? Hardly, a costly fabrication shop was needed to cut and process 4, 6, 8, and 10 inch pipe. If a two inch copper pipe line could be run from the street and if a five hundred dollar industrial centrifugal pump (that could operate continuously for ten years without maintenance), and would provide more water than an honest sprinkler system would need, could it be installed? No way! The $25,000 UL approved pump and related controls were required, plus perhaps a $20,000 water connection with back-flow preventer. The pump and related equipment might require so much space that a $50,000 pump house might also be needed. Of course, if the street main could not supply the massive water demand one could always install a hundred thousand gallon ground level reservoir or possibly get by with only a 50,000 gallon elevated tank. After hydraulic calculations were allowed, the NFPA code required a push button calculation method that guaranteed the system would be pipe sized to produce, quite often, a too-low density over the early fire. That would guarantee that the heat from the early fire would definitely open some extra sprinklers flowing water where there was no fire - yet. By guaranteeing extra heads would open, the pressure and density directly over the fire would be reduced. Of course, the greater the number of sprinklers that opened where there was no fire, the greater the drop in pressure and density at the site of the fire.
Therefore, the fire would grow even larger, the heat at the ceiling would spread farther, more sprinklers would open where there was no fire, and the fire would grow larger yet. Eventually, hopefully, the firefighters would arrive and put water directly onto the fire and not elsewhere, assuming they could still get close to the fire. Even though the system was designed either by graduate engineering idiots or the sprinkler industry designers (who were without fault because they were taught the NFPA code way) nearly always the sprinklers would hold the fire at least to the degree that the firefighters could get it controlled. The day after the fire was extinguished the insurance inspector would arrive and count how many heads had opened. Then he would congratulate his engineers. You designed it for two acres of open heads and thats how many opened. How brilliant you are! If they designed it for adequate density over the early fire, the open heads would have been four or less, probably requiring less than a hundred gallons a minute for maybe ten minutes. But nobody wanted that. The NFPA sprinkler and water supply codes accomplished three things that were much appreciated: less than ten sprinkler companies controlled nearly all the work nationally, the fire inspector became a mechanical and hydraulic engineer the moment he purchased the codes, and roughly 99 percent of all buildings remained unprotected and fully burnable. PART 22: ANY STUPID ANSWER WILL SUFFICE. PART 22: ANY STUPID ANSWER WILL SUFFICE ANY HONEST QUESTION IS USUALLY REJECTED: Over the year I have prepared many serious and valid letters and reports to authorities such as the NFPA, UL, the IAFC, local fire authorities and government officials. Most were not even answered. But, when answered, the answers were often so inane that I had to wonder, could they be that ignorant or are they just blowing smoke my way. Also, for many years I attended meetings including the NFPA conventions and raised important issues. But any answer, making sense or not, that was an attempt to rebut what I stated would suffice. The reality was that code dishonesty was common knowledge to most of those in the fire field but they liked it that way. The codes created opportunities for all who profited from or earned a paycheck from fire. Ill give a couple of examples: I wrote to the NFPA in 1992 to again protest the phony (indeed criminal) testing resulting in the wrong orientation of the NFPA fire detection code No. 74. I explained to the NFPA that during the Dunes Tests the engineers failed to install heat detectors during the hot flaming fire tests and then claimed the missing devices failed to perform. The research lies were then used as the proof that the heat detectors could be removed from the NFPA code. The NFPA reply to my concerns came by way of a copy of a memo from A. E. Cote, (Chief Engineer of NFPA) and John Hall (NFPA Assistant VP) to A. R. ONeil (NFPA Executive). That memo, in part, stated that, For example, he (Patton) characterizes a number of the early tests as having been conducted with no heat detectors present when they were clearly labeled as using thermocouples (temperature recorders) as surrogates for heat detectors. This was one of those typical inane answers I usually received from the experts at the NFPA and from the engineering fire experts as well. Logically, what can a temperature recorder tell you as to whether a heat detector will or will not operate when there is a flaming fire? If the thermocouple revealed that the maximum ceiling temperature recorded was below the operating temperature (135 degrees) of the heat detector, a failure to operate (if it had been present) would NOT have been a failure. If the thermocouple revealed that the ceiling temperature rose to a thousand degrees, how
could that information prove the heat detector would have failed to operate if it had been installed? Such inane logic from engineers was not the exception; it was the norm. The NFPA codes were written by special interest committee members attempting to structure codes to help sell a product. Logic and engineering principles meant nothing to the profit oriented committee members. Therefore, finding sensible answers to deliberately corrupted fire codes was not easy.
Note: My 1992 letter to the NFPA is at: www.TheWorldFireSafetyFoundation.org/nfpa92
CAN YOU BURN THE BUILDING WITHOUT HARMING THOSE WITHIN?: One of the worst examples of fractured logic always came from an insurance industry representative. When I would articulate, at an NFPA Convention, the technical details of how and why a fire sprinkler system could be engineered to cost a fraction of the cost of a NFPA code designed system, and at the same time apply a greater density (superior control) directly over the early fire, always at least one insurance engineer would get up to respond. He would tell the assemblage that the advanced fire sprinkler system designs were OK for protecting life. Then he would explain that the fire insurers did not insure life, but rather the building. Moreover, he would declare the modernized system was not satisfactory for protecting the building. I would always reply thusly, the people are the most easily damaged contents of a building; how can you control the early fire and save even the babies in their cribs while allowing the building to burn down? But invariably it was no use; those at the meetings would not challenge an explanation for rejecting better sprinkler systems if the insurance man said we must reject that system because my dog ate my homework. Engineering fundamentals, logic, common sense, concern for the burning children; they all went out the window when the status quo was threatened. THE EVOLUTION OF THE FIREPROOF BUILDING: The NFPA Life Safety code originally was a Building Exits code. While sprinklers protected the factory the life safety solution for hotels, hospitals, apartments etc. was the fireproof compartmented building. Here are the basic concepts. First the building would be built of fire resistive materials such as brick, concrete and fireproofed steel. To fire proof steel it was necessary to enclose it in concrete or cover it with gypsum board or spray-on fireproofing material The idea was to put a barrier between the steel and the heat. At the time fireproof buildings were not supposed to burn. Then, floors and walls within the building also must be fire resistant. In theory, each corridor within the building would be smoke and fire free because the corridors would be free of combustibles. Also, the corridor walls would trap the fire within the room where it started. Thus all occupants would be able to travel smoke and fire free corridors to the enclosed and fire rated stairways. Once inside the fireproof stairway, it supposedly was the equivalent to exiting the building because, supposedly, the stairway would be smoke free and a clear path to safety. But, although these fireproof buildings did not burn everything inside burned like fuel burn in a stove. And the fireproof building trapped smoke about as well as a sieve holds water. Basically, the NFPA fireproof building was not fireproof and the smoke and fire free exit paths were often filled with flames and smoke. But, one must realize that the complete elimination of the fire problem was not the goal of the regulators. This is one of the primary reasons Why America is Burning. PART 24: DO NOT PUT THAT FIRE OUT - THE ECONOMICS OF FIRE FIRE SPRINKLERS WERE THE ENEMY OF THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY:
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I realized early in my career that fire sprinkler systems represented a near 100 percent solution to the fire problem in buildings. However, this was dangerous to my career. A fire engineer from a major insurance broker told me that one time, when he was new to the field; he was inspecting a plant with an enormously high insurance rate and suggested to the plant manager that if he installed sprinklers his rate would drop so dramatically that he could pay off the system in just a few years. But when he got back to the office, his manager, who had been contacted by the plant manager about sprinklers, was furious with him. He called him into his office and warned him if he ever told a plant manager to install sprinklers again he would be fired. The economics is that insurance on a high valued plant that is creating a two hundred thousand dollar per year commission for the broker might drop to, say, thirty thousand if sprinkler protected. The NFPA was created by the fire insurance industry in 1896 to create a fire code that set the requirements for the sprinkler system so complex and so costly that it would be installed only within the high risk industrial properties where the insurers needed protection to make the property an acceptable insurance risk. Sometime during the 20th Century the fire officials in America realized that the fire sprinkler was so effective at controlling the early fire that the sprinkler system was the enemy of the fire services. Therefore the fire chiefs, by and large, have cooperated in the code writing to severely limit the sprinkler installations. However, within the fire services there has always been a minority that actively promoted sprinklers because fire was so deadly. They are real humanitarians. The end result is that sprinklers have finally been allowed to be installed in many building types where they were not installed previously. But the NFPA regulations have been able to severely limit these installations. There is only one logical solution to fire and I advocated it many years ago. It is a simple and cost effective solution.
Put the Fire out BEFORE it Becomes Large and Deadly!

THE ALTERNATE TO SPRINKLER PROTECTION Early in my career I realized why the NFPA/insurers fire solution was not working. It was not the building itself that was the fire problem but rather the combustible contents within the building. A fireproof building was no different than a furnace. A furnace is designed to withstand an internal fire. So is the fireproof building. When the contents burned only a tiny fraction of the combustibles have to be converted to smoke, to block exit paths, and to toxic gases and heat, to kill the occupants. The home is sheathed on the interior with gypsum board, which represents a fireproofing of the home (the intent was to confine the fire to one home until the fire department arrived. The insurers were content with homes burning singly but not with conflagrations involving many homes). However, note that this fireproofing of the building interior did not prevent the contents fire from killing the occupants. Few know this but the Coconut Grove fire of 1942 in Boston (492 dead) occurred within a fireproof building. The building survived and continued in use for many more years. Within manufacturing facilities the production equipment was far more valuable than the building. And the cost of lost production also could be much greater than the cost of the lost building. Hence, because industrial losses could be excessive for the insurers, sprinkler protection was allowed. Otherwise the codes effectively barred sprinklers from nearly all buildings because the profits from fire would be reduced. The NFPA cooperated in creating codes that allowed industrial properties to be protected but prevented the non-industrial properties from being protected. The Fireproof Building was the substitute for the fire sprinkler system. There is no doubt that fireproofing is an essential
component to the fire protection arsenal. What it is not, however, is a satisfactory alternate to sprinkler protection. PART 26: VOODOO ENGINEERING
The first course in Fire Protection Engineering initiated at Armour Institute of Technology in 1903. Later Armour became Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). I received a Bachelor of Science degree in Fire Protection Engineering from IIT in 1951. Later I passed the required testing in Ohio and became a licensed professional engineer. The FPE course included many true engineering subjects. But the fire engineering was largely oriented toward what we have accepted as fire science according to the fire insurance industry and the NFPA codes. In short, the fire science component was seriously corrupted by the NFPA code making system. Much to my regret, my fellow fire engineers have chosen to key what is termed fire engineering to the NFPA codes. The result in my view is Voodoo Engineering. I have proven that the existing water line to the great majority of small and compartmented buildings will suffice for sprinkler protection. The average number of sprinklers that operate due to a fire in what the NFPA terms light hazard occupancy (I term it life at risk property) is less than two. And, for this property type a 10 gallon per minute (gpm) flow per sprinkler (small orifice) will provide excellent control of the early fire. The NFPA code has far too often prevented sprinklers from being installed unless a 4 or 6 inch line is run from the street main to the building (at costs that can go as high as $50,000). Often $40,000 is spent on UL listed fire pumps whereas an inline centrifugal (non-UL listed) could be installed for $1,000.00. The evidence that the ionization device is a phony smoke detector and a killer of children has been common knowledge within the fire engineering community for more than three decades. How many of the approximately 5,000 fire engineers have dared to warn the public relative this endangerment? Very few! Do they not have a duty of care responsibility to warn/protect the public? As indicated above, although the corruption relative sprinklers and fire detectors may head the list of voodoo fire engineering, the corruption is endemic in the entire fire protection field. Reluctantly, I have to admit that fire engineers in America has been in bed with the NFPA. And I consider the NFPA to be Americas number one serial killer of children during the 20th century. PART 23: THE LEGACY OF CORRUPTED FIRE CODES
THE RUBE GOLDBERG SOLUTIONS TO THE FIRE PROBLEM: Today we have at least 80 million U.S. homes protected with phony ionization smoke detectors. These devices warn of bread being toasted and the shower running, but often remain silent when the kids burn. But that is only the tip of the iceberg. Many of the large buildings in America, such as high rise office buildings, hospitals, hotels and other Life at Risk buildings, are protected with very costly and extremely complex fire detection and evacuation systems. These systems are loaded with smoke detectors in rooms, corridors, elevator lobbies, air ducts and anyplace else where they could be installed. Supposedly they will detect smoke and close dampers and fire doors, alert the occupants, take elevators out of service, force the people to use the stairways (that are almost certain to be filled with smoke), notify the internal security forces, send a signal to the fire department, evacuate the smoke from the building, etc. These systems often included voice communication systems so that when they shift the smoke and the occupants.
Within hospitals the smoke detector gurus wanted a smoke detector and automatic damper in every duct at every point where the duct (above the corridor ceiling) passed from the corridor to the air supply vent within the patient room. Also, the detector below the ceiling in the corridor would theoretically close the door to the patient room. Then the right dampers would be automatically closed or opened to shift the smoke to outdoors or at least to an unoccupied area of the building. The concepts behind this enormously complex and costly fire emergency system were developed during a time when the NFPA codes had barriers to the installation of fire sprinkler systems. Years ago, a fellow fire protection engineer who worked for the federal government became famous for his high rise building fire safety strategies. He operated within that twilight zone of government where crackpot ideas are honored because they create a justification for endless research studies. The research and the funding can proceed for decades because nothing of a practical nature ever evolves. His strategy was to create a high rise fire solution based on moving the smoke where the people werent and moving the people where the smoke wasnt. This would require that there be a master control room off the lobby and everything must be monitored by sensors and controlled with smoke detectors and other controls. Detectors would close doors or open doors, close dampers in the air ducts or open dampers. A voice system would tell the people where to go to be safe and the controls would shift the smoke elsewhere. I got caught in his lecture and for about four hours I had to listen to the most complex theories of how to make high rises and other Life at Risk type properties safe. It was complexity upon complexity and my head was spinning. Several times I interrupted him to ask this simple question, Why not put the fire out? By that I meant install a fire sprinkler system which at the time to suggest that was the equivalent of heresy. Of course, asking that question was akin to sticking him with a stiletto. He gave me one of those put the fire out and ruin all my masterful plans look. His eyes said, How dare you suggest that, sir. Obviously the smoke detector sellers loved him. The researchers at the National Bureau of Standards loved him. The haters of the fire sprinkler system loved him. He won some prestigious federal award. Many of this mans theories were not that far removed from what was being broadly promoted by the fire profiteers. The schemes had little chance of working during a real disaster. But that was not what was motivating the fire experts. It was a question of how can the code be rigged to produce the maximum profits, and who will get the lions share of it. The public believes it is all based on making buildings fire safe. What it is really based on is who will get the largest piece of the pie that will be baked by the code writers. But for years these elaborate fire detection and smoke control systems (based on smoke detectors everywhere) were promoted as alternate protection for sprinklers. The basic concept was, dont put out the fire, it is much more fun to shift the smoke and the people around. And when all the smoke cleared the Rube Goldberg Schemes were alive and well. Then, to satisfy public demand, sprinklers were often required as well. The reality is that many of these elaborate fire detection and smoke control systems that are installed in high rises, hospitals and other major structures never pass the final testing. Sometimes there are tests and disputes and more tests and more disputes until finally the systems are signed off even if they cant get it all working. The owners finally get tired of trying to get them to perform as expected. Assuming the system does finally perform to the specifications, and is working perfectly when signed off; dont assume it will stay that way. These systems are strongly oriented towards smoke detectors. If a smoke detector within a duct works and the damper functions during a fire, probably it is more luck than professional skill. As time passes the smoke detectors begin to become loaded with dust and other foreign materials. False alarms become common. It is expensive to be replacing them. Also, it is difficult to find well trained technicians for maintaining these systems and expensive if you do. There
is a common solution to the problem of maintaining them, however. The solution is to disconnect the devices that are false alarming or to kill the worst performing circuits or, perhaps take the entire system out of service. If a well trained fire detection system technician (which eliminates fire department inspectors) were to go to any large city in America and test fire detection and alarm systems in 100 large buildings, I believe that 75 percent of them would not be in fully functional and some would be virtually useless. Those that are central station monitored would do much better but I would still expect many of the smoke detectors to be disconnected. The smoke detector industry, with the help of UL, NFPA and the SFPE put most Americans at risk to fire, at work and at home.
EVIL PERSISTS WHEN GOOD PEOPLE DO NOTHING

Richard M Patton
Fire Protection Engineer President, The Crusade Against Fire Deaths Author, The American Home Is A Fire Trap R M Patton: Credentials Email: rmpatton@surewest.net
www.FireCrusade.com
www.AmericasHolocaust.org
www.TheWorldFireSafetyFoundation.org
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Why America Is Burning

A History to Why America is Burning

DECEPTION AND LIES

by: R. M. Patton Fire Protection Engineer

Why America Is Burning

Why America Is Burning

A History To Why America Is Burning?

Why America Is Burning

Why America Is Burning

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Weve got outdated (ionization) technology that does not work.

Americans are using unsafe and inadequate smoke detectors.

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Lady of Angels School Fire - Chicago;

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Put the Fire out BEFORE it Becomes Large and Deadly!

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EVIL PERSISTS WHEN GOOD PEOPLE DO NOTHING

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