NFPA Journal - July/August 2013 - (Page 58)
Front
BUrnEr
Commercial products designed to mitigate cooking fires—the primary cause
of home structure fires—have so far failed to go mainstream, but research
efforts to develop testing standards for the devices hope to reverse that trend
BY FRED DURSO, JR.
A
t the Hughes Associates research facility in Baltimore, Maryland,
engineers are conducting experiments on a plain white electric
stove. Tubes and wires are hooked up to the appliance, giving it a
kind of hospital-patient look. A frying pan containing cooking oil
heats on the stovetop, and gauges monitor the temperature of the pan as the oil
reaches the point of ignition. As fire shoots from the pan, sampling ports in a
collection hood over the stove analyze the oxygen, carbon dioxide, and carbon
monoxide levels of the smoke and gases emitting from the flaming pan.
Hughes, a fire protection and engineering firm, is one of a handful of companies
and institutions currently analyzing methods to mitigate cooking fires, which
are the leading cause of home structure fires and associated injuries in the United
States, according to NFPA. (See “Kitchen Nightmares,” page 63.) The goal of the
Hughes project, which is being conducted under the auspices of the Fire Protection
Research Foundation and supported through a grant from the National Institute
of Standards and Technology (NIST), is to help develop standardized fire scenarios
and performance test methods for cooking-fire mitigation technologies, which the
Foundation believes is a crucial step in furthering the use of these technologies.
Efforts to reduce the deaths, injuries, and property damage associated with these
fires are not new; groups such as the International Association of Fire Chiefs have
raised the issue for years, while NIST, the Consumer Product Safety Commission
58
NFPA JOURNAL JULY/AUGUST 2013
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - July/August 2013
NFPA Journal - July/August 2013
Contents
First Word
In a Flash
Perspectives
Firewatch
Research
Heads Up
Structural Ops
In Compliance
Buzzwords
Outreach
Electrical Safety
Wildfire Watch
Loud + Clear
Allied in Safety
Front Burner
Firefighter Fatalities in the United States, 2012
Fire Analysis + Research
Section Spotlight
What’s Hot
Looking Back
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