NO.
31
DO WE NEED FREE ENTERPRISE FIRE SAFETY?
© 1973 Patton Fire Protection and Research, Inc.
Ever since the communist threat came into being at
the end of World War II this nation has been trying
to sell the world on the idea that a free society is
an efficient society.
Certainly there is much in America that lends
credence to this belief. The free soceity founded
by our forefathers has produced an environment
where originality, progress and success is common.
A man who owns his own business will work hard
to achieve efficiency and profit. Also, the desire to
improve one's own position produces efficient
workers.
I count myself as one who supports these American
beliefs. I do believe that freedom, initiative and
the profit motive play an extremely important
part in a healthy economy. I do believe that the
concentration of all power in one central control
point has a deadening effect upon commerce.
What I find hard to understand, however, is — that
in this free enterprise society of ours — so many of
us feel that human safety, including fire safety,
can be achieved only through bureaucratic means.
THE REGULATED
FIRE SAFETY ENVIRONMENT
The modern history of fire safety is a classic
example of a bureaucratically regulated environ-
ment. Every bureaucratic concept of a controlled
society which we claim to abhor so greatly has
bean employed in the cause of fire safety.
Our whole approach to safety has been apparently
founded on the philosophy that neither the
building designer, nor the building owner, nor the
building occupant can be trusted in this matter of
safety. Rather, safety features must be dictated by
proper authority, they must be written into special
rules and regulations. Inspectors must be sent out
to the plant to investigate management. When
inspectors discover any of the innumerable rules
and regulations being ignored, appropriate fines or
insurance rate changes are levied.
The inspectors do not go into an industrial or
commercial facility and say to the owner, "Would
you please sit down and explain your programs
and operations to us so that we might better
understand your safety program." Oh no, the
inspectors have their rule books which are applic-
able to all industries of many diverse forms, and
rules are checked off with precision to see if there
are violations.
As in a controlled society, experts meet on com-
mittees and promulgate regulations. Those who are
effected by the regulations often have little
knowledge of the committee meetings. Those
who are at the committee meetings often have little
knowledge of the facilities being regulated.
Now it cannot be denied that safety regulations
promulgated by the insurance industry and legal
entities have resulted in some improvements in
safety in industrial and commercial properties. A
bureaucratic appraoch to safety has worked to a
degree — just as the central government in a con-
trolled society can bring about some economic
improvements. But, can we accomplish more in a
free environment? I think so. I think that the
American business community is now aware of the
benefits of safety and that a greater level of free
enterprise in the field of safety is now warranted.
EXAMPLES OF REGULATED SAFETY
The control of sprinkler system design by the
National Fire Protection Association is perhaps the
prime example of the regulation of a technology.
The "cook book" of sprinkler design that came
into being at the turn of the century has been so
rigidly applied, with so few deviations permitted,
that in truth the design engineers in sprinkler in-
stallation companies have had virtually no design
initiatives. This almost absolute barrier against
change, initiative, and creativity has stunted the
automatic fire suppression concept to the point
where it is my belief that the cost is perhaps 6,000
lives per year. I am absolutely convinced that if it
were not for the rigid control of the sprinkler
system design that our annual fire loss in lives
would have been cut in half for at least the last
25 years, I firmly believe that the price of centrally
regulated fire protection has been more than
100,000 lives since the end of World War II, and
this includes perhaps 60,000 children.
The monetary cost of a fire technology based on
regulations rather than a freely applied technology
is staggering. The NFPA is concerned with 2 billion
dollars in fire loss that occurs each year. But it is
my belief that the direct fire loss is but the tip of
the iceburg. The great bulk of the losses are
hidden below the sea.
Probably at least 10 billion dollars per year are
being spent on worthless fire protection. When
four hours of fire resistance is provided for a
structure enclosing a one-hour fire loading, the
money spent on the superfluous fireproofing
represents dollars down the drain (just as surely
as a direct fire loss is a waste of money). The
extra money spent to purchase a sprinkler pipe
hanger that is 18 times as strong as necessary is
money wasted. Every businessman and every
citizen spends considerable money on fire protec-
tion each and every year, whether they tally it up
or not. A very substantial portion of these ex-
penditures produce a very low return, or no return,
in terms of true fire safety.
For example, I would not be one bit surprised if
a study revealed that the Underwriter approved
hand fire extinguisher in the hands of the amateur
fire fighter results in fire control on the average of
no better than 50% of the time it is placed in
operation. I believe that almost any rational
person who is given a free opportunity to develop
a practical and efficient fire extinguishing system
-2-
(to be used by employees) would come to the
conclusion that a small garden hose with a spray
nozzle represents a vastly superior fire control
system.
Under a free enterprise system of fire safety I do
21/2
not believe the gallon water fire extinguisher
could survive as a marketable item. If we could
somehow wave a magic wand and turn the NFPA
fire extinguisher committee into stone, if we could
permit each property owner to make his own
evaluation as to what provides best protection for
his property, in very short order the 2% gallon
extinguisher would go out of existence. Then
property owners would be protecting their proper-
ties with garden hose, and there would be far, far
fewer properties that burn up each year.
Let's think about this business of putting a fire out
21/2
with a gallon water extinguisher for a minute.
Research proves that a totally involved one room
fire (entire room on fire) can be completely
extinguished by as little as 20 gallons of water
provided it is applied at the rate of 6 to 10 GPM
in the form of a spray. Water is tremendously more
efficient as a fire fighting tool as a spray than it is
as a straight stream.
But the 2% gallon extinguisher delivers water at an
inadequate rate (say 3 GPM) for an inadequate
length of time (50 seconds) in an almost totally
inefficient manner.
It is claimed that a good salesman could sell
refrigerators to Eskimos. But in my estimation, the
man who can sell a hard nosed businessman — who
buys all the water he needs at pennies per thousands
21/2
of gallons — a gallon package of water at
25 dollars or so a package, has got to be the greatest.
(But, of course, he's done it in a most clever
manner. He's got bureaucrats to write the regula-
tions forcing the businessman to buy his product.)
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this entire
wierd operation is that the group that tells us that
50 seconds of water is enough for the untrained
fire fighter (perhaps a woman) is the same bunch
of experts that has prevented us from installing an
automatic water spray system (sprinkler system)
unless five hundred gallons per minute is available
for a full hour (30 thousand gallons total). Some-
ti mes I am not sure who's side these experts are
on — the fire or the fire fighters.
Note that on one hand an almost useless device
(for fighting a full room size fire) is labeled and
forced on to the public by regulation, and on the
other hand an amazingly efficient and reliable auto-
matic fire control system is voided as a practical
system for hundreds of thousands of small busi-
nesses and dwellings by ridiculously excessive
regulations.
Note that the recognition of a simple, inexpensive,
non "labeled", readily available fire fighting tool
(the garden hose) as a vastly superior control
21/2
mechanism to the Underwriters Labeled gallon
extinguisher could reduce the testing and labeling
and marketing of the "specialized" and "approved"
unit and it could also eliminate the need for an
extensive NFPA standard for fire extinguishers.
Note the implications of what I am saying.
Bureaucratically promulgated fire safety regulations
not only cause American businessmen and home-
owners to buy inferior systems at fantastic costs
( wasted money) but they also prevent the develop-
ment of practical fire safety systems that could
virtually eliminate fire as a major problem.
Let me reiterate. It is my contention that man has
already reached and passed the stage of tech-
nological development where fire — as a significant
national problem — could be eliminated.
We have the technology at present to solve the
fire problem economically and efficiently. The
only reason why fire continues to be a major
national problem is that bureaucratic regulations
have voided the best solutions available, and have
imposed relatively useless (but extremely costly)
solutions upon the public.
In summary, it is my belief that our fire safety
regulations as they exist today, are not so much
intended to protect the public from fire as they
are to preserve the fire protection market for those
who trade in the market.
FIRE PROTECTION IS A MARKET PLACE
The field of fire safety is a multibillion dollar
market place for many powerful organizations
including equipment manufacturers, the fire insur-
ance industry, and building construction materials
Manufacturers and suppliers.
When fire protection is a function of regulations,
then there is an incentive for those who fish in the
fire protection stream to protect their fishing
rights. Those who seek assignments on the fire pro-
tection committees, spend the money to get to
the meetings, and play the most active part in
preparing the regulations usually are trying to steer
the regulations into areas that are beneficial to
themselves. This is the great danger of a regulated
fire safety technology. The characteristic of a
regulated fire protection technology is that safety
is not a function of the public's needs for safety,
it is a function of profit oriented groups.
So long as fire technology is a function of codes,
regulations and enforcement officials, it will bend
to the pressures of special interest. A regulated fire
technology will never be truly oriented toward the
needs of the public.
If fire protection is permitted greater freedom to
evolve, if fire safety becomes a function of science
and engineering rather than government or insur-
ance regulation, then under the free enterprise
system a good solution will advance. Costly but
useless fire protection will drop by the roadside.
Human fire needs will be achieved only when a
free technology replaces bureaucracy.
ARE SAFETY ADVOCATES HEADING
IN THE WRONG DIRECTION?
Perhaps there is no one who has worked more
tirelessly for the public good than Ralph Nader.
Mr. Nader has been the champion of the American
public against the abuses of big business. Cer-
tainly many of his charges have substance. There is
no doubt that the profit pursuits of big business
can sometimes trample small men under foot.
But will the solutions to these problems as pro-
posed by Mr. Nader and many, many other safety
crusaders improve the situation? Or might things
get worse?
What disturbs me most about many of these cru-
saders is that they are looking toward big govern-
ment to solve the problem. In my opinion big
government is a far greater threat to human rights
than big business.
When we give a strong federal government in-
creased power to regulate our lives in the interest
of protecting us from abuses, real or imagined, we
are creating a condition where far greater abuse is
a certainty. Concentration of power puts decision
making on the level where only the most powerful
and the most influential can penetrate. Those who
think that government agencies are not subject to
the influences of powerful interests are out of
touch with reality. Central government control
represents control by the few and the powerful.
I am convinced that fire safety for all can never
be achieved through government regulations. The
more powerful the regulating force the greater will
be the influence of special interest groups. Fire
safety dictated by government regulations can
never become a viable technology. Regulation kills
creativity and invention.
I believe that in the long run that rigid govern-
ment control in the name of safety will result in
countless accidental deahts. I believe that a viable
safety technology can grow to maximum usefulness
only in a free and open environment.