2


• Tom Chaplan, Head of UL's fire protection division – CBS News (July 24 2006),
stated,
"In today's homes, the tendency for synthetics – like nylon and polyester in
furnishings, fabrics and carpeting – is to smoulder for a long time, then burn
faster than natural materials like wood and cotton which char as they burn.
Synthetics melt and pool, then give off substantially more energy when they
burn".

• From, Fire Safety of Upholstered Furniture – the final report on the CBUF research
programme, edited by Bjom Sundstrom, European Commission Measurement and
testing Report:

Page 64
Time Between Ignition and Discovery
(UK Statistics for 314 Fire Casualties*)
Time # Casualties % of Total
At ignition 14 4.4%
Under 5 minutes 23 7.3%
5-30 minutes 78 24,8%
More than 30 minutes 194 61.8%
Not Known 5 1.5%

The table demonstrates that 88.3% of fatalities occur when the discovery time is
more than 5 minutes. This is particularly relevant for sleeping occupants.


• Building Fire Statistics 88-97 Norway, Directorate for Fire and Explosion Prevention,
states,
"It is recognized that deadly fires and fires doing the most damage typically
have a substantial undetected incipient stage while flame-ignited fires are
typically intimate with awake people and connected to their activities. Hence,
detection in order to alert is less important (in flaming fires)".

• The NIST Study Technical Note 145, suggests that the ASET may only be 3 minutes
for an ultra-fast fire involving upholstery furniture. It concludes, "the placement of
either alarm type on every level of the house provided the necessary escape time for
the different types of fires examined". However, this is not supported by data from
within the NIST report (pgs 242, 243), which shows that for smouldering fires in the
living area, the ionization device provided less than the required safe evacuation
time in two of the tests (-43s and -54s) or barely adequate time (+16s) in another
test. This fire scenario i.e. smouldering fire in the living area was identified as the
most common fatal fire scenario (pg. 60).

• Meland, Oysten, and Lonuik, Lars, "Detection of Smoke—Full Scale Tests with
Flaming and Smouldering Fires", Fire Safety Science, Proceedings of the Third
International Symposium, July, 1991, pp. 975-984, states the following,
"The ionization detectors detected smoke from a smoldering fire much later
than optical (photoelectric) detectors. When the particular conditions during
the fire development are taken into consideration there are reasons to
indicate that this detection principle would not provide adequate safety
during this type of fire."

• The "Residential Smoke Alarm Report" - Prepared by Special Automatic Detection
Committee of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, The International Fire
Chief, (September 1980) states,
"This test will show that most photoelectric detectors, operated by battery will
detect smoke at about 1.5 - 3% smoke (4.8 - 9.5% Obs/m), which is good.
The test will show that the photoelectric detectors operated by household
current will activate between 2 and 4 %, (6.4 – 12.5% Obs/m) which is still
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