Name: Fire Expert Explains Why Old Buildings Like Notre Dame Burn So Easily
Uploaded: 2021-03-25T18:25:44.000Z
Duration: 4 min 22 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

a number of kind of common themes start to come through.

One is looking at the combustible materials

and the overall structure being of combustible materials.

It creates a lot of challenges for firefighters to really

I'm a fire and disaster management consultant.

that then results once a fire does get started.

And we've seen recently the Glasgow School of Arts fire,

the second fire there that was during restoration.

We've seen it on a number of other buildings:

One part is just looking at the overall construction

The wood trusses, the roof decking for instance.

Just regular interior finishes throughout these buildings

When we first see some of these buildings,

they look like stone-masonry-type construction.

The floors, the pews in churches and so forth

Papers, whether it's artwork, all types of different things

and they just continue over time to build up

and get placed throughout different areas of the building.

Some of the other things that we run into

is just looking at fire separations for instance.

It may just be a large uncompartmented space

that would allow the fire to spread within that space

They may have actually put in fire walls at times,

but then over the years and centuries and so forth,

doors may be removed for various reasons.

One of the other things just to keep in mind too,

There's limited areas that they have to fight a fire from.

They have limited water supplies and hoses

So it's typically an externally fought fire,

a lot of these roofs in these older buildings

which are intended to keep the water out.

So spraying water on tops of these roofs,

A lot of times when you do see fires in historic structures,

For instance, Troitsky Cathedral in Russia

Wangdue Phodrang Dzong in Bhutan had a fire

There's a lot that's going on during that time

So there's a fair amount of new ignition sources

that are introduced there on a temporary basis.

We also can have a lot of combustible materials

overall construction materials, potentially the scaffolding.

Those types of things that could be introduced on site.

the ignition potential could be increasing.

we often, the detection system may be being installed,

or it may be covered over so that the dust and debris

And then on the fire separation side as well too,

at times doors are taken off to be restored,

I think there's definitely things that can be done

to help improve the protection of these buildings.

I think over the years, people have been living,

working, going to services in these buildings for years,

and these buildings have lasted for centuries at times,

that, "Well, we haven't had a fire. Therefore, we're safe,

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Fire Expert Explains Why Old Buildings Like Notre Dame Burn So Easily

potential

perception

opportunity

improve