The Patton Report:
Fire Safety for the High-Rise Building
RICHARD M. PATTON
HE recent fire in the high-rise office building at One
T New York Plaza in New York City has once again
demonstrated two things: (a) existing building codes do not
define a satisfactory level of fire safety for the occupants
of high-rise buildings, or for the men who must fight the
fires; and (b) the codes are a reflection of an obsolete fire
protection technology. In order to improve the codes it is
first necessary to develop new concepts of fire protection.
The problem of fire in a high-rise building appears to
be tremendously complex. Most floors are far above the
reach of fire department aerial ladders. Gaining access to
the fire is extremely difficult. A 50- or 60-story stairway
is close to an impossible exit for occupants. Elevators are
unsafe under fire conditions. The fire resistant structure
is a heat trap. Fixed sash creates ventilation problems.
Falling glass is a hazard to those in the street below. Com-
bustibles that produce highly toxic gases are deadly to
trapped occupants and fire fighters.
The high-rise building, to say the least, has potential
for very serious fire with large loss of life. The problems
appear to be insurmountable. They are not! There are
very good solutions to this problem just as there are to most
technical problems.
If there are good, easy to apply, solutions to the
problem, then why aren't they applied? The answer is that
there is a major road block in the way of sensible solu-
tions. The road block is traditional fire protection.
If we could wipe the slate perfectly clean and start
again from scratch, if we could forget everything that went
before, and be free to develop new concepts of fire protec-
tion for the new buildings, then the solutions would not be
so difficult to arrive at. Solutions are difficult to find only
when our vision becomes blurred by the ghosts of yes-
teryear. Grandfather, to put it mildly, is messing up our
designs.
The traditional solutions to fire, developed for build-
ings of oh-so-long-ago, are still in the rule books and the
codes, and there is no room for something new because of
the clutter of the old.
Fire protection must be economically practical. If
money is spent wastefully for non-essential fire protection
there will be little left for sensible fire protection. New
solutions are not practical until old, no longer pertinent
solutions, are eliminated. I propose the following:
AUTOMATIC FIRE SUPPRESSION
There are two ways to put a fire out. One way is with
built-in equipment. The other is with manpower. But the
high-rise building as presently designed is an impossible
R.M. Patton is president, Patton Fire Protection & Research Inc,
Freehold, N.J.
ASHRAE JOURNAL April 1971
challenge to the human fire control system. The chemistry
of fire is such that it call get out of hand rapidly if there is
no built-in suppression system. How do you gain access to
a totally involved floor hundreds of feet above the street?
The answer is you do it by doing the impossible. But why
ask the impossible of the fire services when there is no
need to do so? An automatic fire suppression system is the
best solution, the most economically practical solution, the
only sensible solution.
Why isn't automatic fire suppression employed? There
are two reasons: (a) Cost: the automatic fire suppression
system (currently referred to as the sprinkler system) has
been made unnecessarily costly through a method of
design-by-regulations developed by Grandfather as a sub-
stitute for engineering; and (b) Reliability: these out-of-
date design regulations also produce an element of unrelia-
bility in the system.
Therefore, there is economic resistance to the
sprinkler system on the part of the designers and the build-
ing owners; and there is also a reluctance on the part of
the authorities to rely on the sprinkler system as a substi-
tute for some of the structural fire protection requirements
because of routine faulty system design methods.
The first step in high-rise safety is an economically
practical and very highly reliable built-in fire suppression
system. This system should be installed ori a trade-off
basis. If built-in fire suppression can be made more eco-
nomical, and can be made more reliable, then there is
more than enough extraneous fire protection in building
design to pay for it.
EXITS
The prevailing fire protection concept of exitways for sky-
scrapers couldn't be worse. The current official fire protec-
tion policy is that in event of fire the stairways should be
used for evacuation, and not the elevators.
Anyone who has ever ridden on a elevator and also
walked down a 50-floor stairway can tell you that the op-
posite should be the case. Aside from the problem of car-
diac failure, studies have shown that stairways do not have
the carrying capacity needed for high-rise buildings. The
exit codes prescribe the same number of stairways for 2-
story buildings as for a 102-story building.
To be sure there is no doubt about the fact that
stairways are the official exitways and elevators are not;
the elevators are designed to do you in if you try to argue
otherwise. If you are exiting from a floor above the fire
floor, and if someone on the involved floor has pushed the
down button, which is not unlikely, your elevator will stop
at the involved floor. The doors will open. If there is
smoke the electric eye (that prevents the door from closing
on people) will be obscured and the doors may remain
open. This will leave both you and the fellow who pushed
the button in a very bad situation. The same danger can
confront a fireman who mistakenly rides an elevator to the
39
involved floor rather than to the floor directly below the
fire.
A new approach to exit from high-rise buildings is
needed with elevators made safe and stairways down-
graded and reduced in number. The following solution is
recommended:
I. Divide each floor into two fire zones with a 2-hr
partition.
2. Lay out corridors so that there are two or more
ways to pass from one side of the floor through the fire
partition to the other side.
3. Protect each opening in the partition with a pair of
fire doors that are normally in the open position and so ar-
ranged (with magnetic door releases operated by product
of combustion detectors) that they will close automatically
in event of smoke detection. The doors through the fire
partition will be horizontal exits. The fire division wall on
each floor can be fitted to the needs of that floor and can
be incorporated in the planned partitioning layout. In most
instances extra partitioning will not be needed. There is no
need to have the partitioning layout on every floor coin-
cide.
4. Install passenger elevators in one section, at least
two freight elevators in the other. Install one stairway in
each section near the elevators. The fire partition must
separate the two banks of elevators on each floor but this
is the only restriction on its location.
5. If the ground floor lobby is kept free of combusti-
bles and also is sprinklered, permit all stairways and eleva-
tors to discharge into the lobby, if desired.
Note: this solution probably represents the elimination
of at least two stairways and it may not require any addi-
tional elevators.
This arrangement of exits combinded with a fire sup-
pression system will accomplish the following:
1. Provide horizontal exits from the fire zone to the
safety zone where there will be ample time for evacuation
under non-panic conditions. The 2-hr rating will exceed
the fire loading of the occupancy so fire penetration, even
after 2 hrs, will be most unlikely. (This will hold even in
the extremely unlikely event that no fire control measures
are employed.)
2. Provide at least one safe elevator for evacuation of
occupants and at least one safe elevator for fire depart-
ment use.
3. It will give the fire department a fire free zone on
the involved floor from which to attack the fire.
4. The fire suppression system combined with a
prompt automatic response by the fire department will vir-
tually guarantee that the fire will be attacked when small
and will be promptly controlled.
There are two additional safeguards that are needed in
connection with the elevators. Provide a product of com-
bustion detector on each floor at each elevator bank and
program the elevators to not stop at a floor where smoke
has operated the detector. Elevators that pass through the
involved side of the floor (where the fire is) will not stop at
the involved floor. Elevators passing through the fire free
zone will stop at all floors. This will protect persons on
upper floors who ride the elevator through the involved
area between the time the fire is initiated until the fire
department arrives and takes the exposed elevators out of
service (if they have to be taken out of service).
Also, raise the floor slightly at the elevator banks to
prevent water entering the shafts and shorting car controls.
Arrange the stairways to pass water downward without
40
wetting every floor below.
The savings available in reducing the number of stair-
ways (also represents space gain) can be applied toward
the cost of the improved elevator controls. There usually
will be little additional cost for a 2-hr fire wall built into
the partitioning layout.
FIREPROOFING
It is essential that the steel in skyscrapers be protected
from excessive heat even in sprinklered buildings. Howev-
er, the fire resistance in hours required by most codes
exceeds the fire loading. With full sprinkler protection it is
recommended that fire resistance for office and apartment
buildings be reduced to not over 2 hrs provided the
sprinkler system is directly connected to a paid fire depart-
ment not more than 15 min running time away.
Further, it is recommended that in the sprinklered
building, fire resistance requirements for corridor and room
partitioning be eliminated; but the partitions should be
non-combustible (with some exceptions). This would not
apply to the fire wall dividing each floor into two sections,
of course.
A realistically fireproofed building combined with an
automatic fire suppression system is an infinitely better
solution than just an over-fireproofed building.
SMOKE
Because of built-in fire resistance fire is usually confined to
one floor of a high-rise building. But smoke has a habit of
spreading. Elevators rising and falling in shafts can act as
smoke pumps. Air-conditioning systems can spread smoke.
Fire converts solids to gases and the increase in volume
creates a pressure to drive smoke through small openings.
Fixed sash compounds the problem.
There is a practical way to solve this problem:
1. Keep the fire small. Control it quickly. This pre-
vents the creation of large quantities of smoke. This
requires a good system of suppression.
2. Install product of combustion detectors in the re-
turn air ducts. Upon operation of the detectors there
should be 100% spill of return air to the outdoors.
COMBUSTIBILITY OF CONTENTS
Highly combustible and highly toxic materials have no
place in the high-rise building. After the real bad actors
are eliminated, an evaluation of the vast bulk of the con-
tents, trim, paneling, and finishes will reveal two things: (a)
there are more than enough combustibles in a modern high-
rise building to be a serious threat to human life; and (b)
there is no practical way of reducing combustibles to the
point where a serious fire is not possible. Efforts aimed at
solving the fire problem through severe restrictions on ma-
terials of a combustible nature will only be self-defeating.
The more practical solution is reasonable regulations
that will eliminate highly combustible and highly toxic ma-
terials, plus excellent methods of fire prevention and sup-
pression.
FIRE SUPPRESSION
Fire proofing requirements for the steel, enclosures for the
stairways, improvements in the elevators, controls for the
prevention of spread of smoke—these are all periphery
solutions to fire.
There are only two real solutions to fire. They are: (a)
prevent it; and (b) put it out.
There are code specified ways to prevent a fire. Prop-
ASHRAE JOURNAL April 1971
erly designed electric wiring is one. Built-in fire prevention
is very important. But the human fire hazard cannot be
fully controlled. People can cause fires in the best de-
signed buildings. Built-in fire prevention features will not
produce a zero fire experience.
Therefore, combined with an achievable degree of fire
prevention, a system of near absolute fire suppression is
the key to true fire safety. A built-in automatic mechanical
fire suppression system is a giant step toward absolute fire
control.
A fire suppression system can also be an automatic
fire detection and alarm system. It is an easy matter to
electrically connect the suppression system to the fire
department. Thus, there will be a rapid response by the
fire department to supplement the mechanical control sys-
tem. This one-two combination is almost foolproof—but
not quite. A well-designed and well-maintained system of
mechanical suppression will rarely fail, but it can happen.
If the mechanical system fails there may be a failure of the
alarm feature intended to alert the fire department. This
can represent a total wipe out of the effective early control
measures.
The amateur fire fighter—the employee, the watch-
man, the visitor—generally is a poor fire fighter. He is in-
experienced and he makes mistakes. He fails to put the
fire out, and he fails to call the fire department.
In spite of these shortcomings it is an easy matter to
make him a very effective fire fighter and also a prompt
summoner of the fire department. It makes sense to do
this.
In order to put out a good sized fire—something that
is considerably more than a waste paper basket fire—an ef-
fective fire fighting tool is needed. A 5/8- or 3/4-in, light
weight flexible hose equipped with a spray nozzle is an
amazingly effective fire control weapon. Five to 10 gpm of
water delivered to a fire in the form of a spray during the
fairly early stages will wipe it out with dispatch. Everyone
knows how to use a small hose. The spray absorbs the
heat that normally drives the amateur away. Armed with
the right kind of fire fighting tool the amateur can be an by the fire department to gain access to the fire.
excellent fire firghter. Water spray is also an approved tool This plan is a dangerous one, however. There is no bar-
for electrical fires. rier to total involvement of an entire floor of a skyscraper.
The fire extinguisher we normally give the amateur It can be most difficult to bring the fire under control by
allows him 50 sec of fire fighting with a straight stream. manual means once the fire has become extensive. Smoke
This is too little water, incorrectly used. Besides, a fire and toxic gases, which are the real killers, often escape the
extinguisher confuses people. They don't normally use one confines of the floor. There is a serious potential for trap-
every weekend watering the shrubbery. ping and killing many occupants at and above the floor
The solution is to give the amateur something he under- that is on fire.
stands, that he can handle easily, and that will do an effec- There is a need for a strong shift toward fire suppres-
tive job on the fire. Give him a large "garden type" rein- sion. The use of fire resistant construction for fire contain-
forced nylon hose with spray nozzle. Then wire the hose ment cannot be discarded, but there is much "fat" that can
(the standpipe) to the fire department just as the mechani- be trimmed with the savings applied to the cost of the
cal suppression system is wired to the fire department. suppression systems.
This combination of suppression systems—the me- There is a need to recognize that elevators, not stair-
chanical system, the amateur, and the professional fire ways, are the pathways of the high-rise building.
fighter—will provide a reliability of fire control that is very There is a need for better smoke control.
close to absolute fire safety. There is a need for horizontal exits to a secure area
for the occupants so that there will be adequate time for
SUMMARY non-panic evacuation, and there is a need for a secure
The present plan for fire safety for the high-rise building base to initiate manual fire control measures.
relies most heavily on containment and traditional ex- All these needs can be provided, and the high-rise build-
itway s. ing can become an extremely fire safe structure; and all
By using "fireproofed" floors, and "fireproofed" enclo- these things can be done without added costs or inconve-
sures around each vertical shaft, the fire is hopefully con- niences. In fact, the design contemplated may well have a
fined to one floor. Occupants presumably can escape down net reduction in total cost, and will certainly give the
the enclosed stairways, and these stairways can be used architect a greater freedom of design.
ASHRAE JOURNAL April 1971 41