When your mentor's shop catches fire

My gig for the last 10 months has been as a county building inspector.  I’ve had to learn a LOT.  Being a small department, there is no way we could possibly inspect construction jobs for every building code violation.  So our focus is life safety.  That may mean a basic electrical inspection, but we look pretty closely at things like house-garage fire separation and draft stopping.  The builders often grumble and think we’re being picky about some of these things, but much of the building code was developed to give building occupants just a little extra time to get out if there is a fire.  A few seconds here and a few seconds there because of draftstopping and fire-rated materials can be the difference between a family getting out of a burning house in the middle of the night, and firefighters having to do the grisly task of removing charred bodies after the fire is out.

“Beep where you sleep”—have smoke detectors in your bedrooms, outside bedrooms, and on every level of your house.  It’s best if you have interconnected detectors and a carbon monoxide alarm, too.

Jason

Here's a tip for everyone with a shop, wood or otherwise, that uses an air compressor.

Ellis Wallentine,  The owner of Wood Central went for a vacation, and left his big compressor powered up.  The unloader valve stuck open causing the compressor to run continuously.   The constant cxurrent draw overheated to circuit and the service panel sent a plasma jet through the steel enclosure setting the building on fire.  Ellis got home to find his pro shop and office and his lifetime collection of tools reduced to a pile of charcoal with only the basement walls standing.

So. if you're not in the shop every day, kill the compressor circuit before you leave.

It would not be terribly difficult, nor expensive to wire in a contactor so that the lights and compressor are all shut down with one switch when one leaves the shop.

This didn’t result in a catastrophic fire, but my previous job in maintenance at the local courthouse had me often working on a compressor that fed all the thermostats and pneumatic HVAC valves in the building.  It had a large, horizontal tank and two 3-hp motor/compressor units on top, with a controller to alternate which compressor ran (both pumps would run if the tank pressure dropped low enough).  Well, one day one of the pressure switches decided to weld itself closed, so one motor ran continuously for quite some time, including at least overnight.  My coworker walked into the boiler room to discover the motor on fire…and still running.  There wasn’t much flammable material in that room, but a lot of expensive equipment, and it could have snowballed into a…big mess.

Jason

Jason Roehl in Lafayette, IN wrote:

It would not be terribly difficult, nor expensive to wire in a contactor so that the lights and compressor are all shut down with one switch when one leaves the shop.

That's a good point Jason, it wouldn't be hard at all.  Just a stout relay with a 120V coil on the light circuit with the contacts feeding the independent air compressor sub circuit from an appropriately sized machine circuit.  If I ever hardwire in a compressor I'll remember that one.

I suspect that pressure switches tend to fail closed because their purpose is to turn on when the pressure is low - which is the default state in their surroundings.  As many times as we hear of the switch failing over the years and a resulting structure fire, it must be a tough nut to crack for the design engineers.

Jason Roehl in Lafayette, IN wrote:

The builders often grumble and think we’re being picky about some of these things, but much of the building code was developed to give building occupants just a little extra time to get out if there is a fire.  A few seconds here and a few seconds there because of draftstopping and fire-rated materials can be the difference between a family getting out of a burning house in the middle of the night, and firefighters having to do the grisly task of removing charred bodies after the fire is out.

I was at an event at a local senior center 30 years or so ago & noticed how the building had been cobbled together, this room added, that space expanded, bit by bit over the years.  A few years after that it caught fire & in the newspaper report they quoted the fire chief as saying that every time they got it under control it would pop up in the next section of the building.  I was working for a builder at the time & had done some commercial construction & had seen what proper fireblocking & draft stopping was.  I thought of all the work done by local guys for cheap or for free & never looked at by a building inspector because these guys are all good competent carpenters.  The place burned to the ground & I had a new appreciation for building codes.

I recently watched a video analyzing the lessons learned from the Ventura wildfires in California last November—specifically why entire blocks of homes were reduced to ashes while others nearby remained untouched.

While fires can start in many ways, these were largely driven by embers carried on strong winds. The embers needed somewhere to land where they could ignite surrounding materials. One of the biggest vulnerabilities turned out to be roof eaves. Winds would blow embers into eaves or into shrubs and mulch positioned directly underneath them, sparking fires.

Homes without exposed eaves or attic vents generally fared much better. So did properties without surrounding vegetation or combustible materials like bark mulch. Even parked vehicles close to a home increased the risk.

Key takeaway: avoid pine straw and bark mulch near structures—use gravel instead. Steer clear of flammable plants in landscaping. Keep fuel-powered equipment and cars either well away from the home or safely stored inside.

Another surprising factor was modern interior design. Open-concept floor plans actually allow fires to spread faster. Older homes with enclosed rooms and doors limited oxygen and slowed the fire’s spread. Fires thrive on oxygen—and open layouts give them all they need to grow quickly and move from room to room.

I occasionally listen to adam carolla. He's gone in circles (but good ones) regarding which houses didn't burn and which did. And toured some that didn't, even with fire pretty much up to the doorstep and the owners left now trying to figure out how to get the smoke smell out. 

But the house is still standing for the owner to figure that out rather than start all over. 

One of the tours makes you get some new found distaste for all of the "smart" devices because one woman owns a $100k a month rental house (not a typo) and it's loaded with smart gadgets, with a couple refusing to turn back on or others having one part that turns on and one that doesn't. They're physically undamaged, but presumably a surge or something similar cooked the smart part of the appliance and they are unusable. 

The on the ground response from firefighters, etc, was really one of dedication. The response from local and state elected officials there is like being in an alternate reality. I feel bad for people who live there just for that, though they probably feel bad for me when it's a 75 degree dewpoint in the mid atlantic or -10F overnight in the winter.

A build up of dead leaves or pine needles is indeed deadly to a structure in a wild fire.  We see that a lot where I live, fire will actually travel under the built up blanket of pine needles on the ground - 10's of feet if not further.  They have an insulating effect that helps maintain combustion (that's why the fire travels on the underside if it's not hot enough in the air to sustain combustion).  Locally, where we often have houses completely in the forest, the recommendation is usually all tree debris raked away and all trees cleared within 50' of the house.  Few want to have that kind of barren-scape around their mountain home however and more often trees are cleared within about 10', limbs are trimmed up so that you have 6' to the ground at least, and regular raking of debris back to the tree line.

In fairness to those California homeowners though, this event was unprecidented historically.  Good for them if they kept their yards and roof tidy and preserved their house, but I sure can't fault those caught napping.  Probably the local firefighters and training companies anticipated this to some extent, but really it was happening on the very far urban side of the wildland/urban interface.