HOW TO KILL CHILDREN TO IMPROVE PROFITS

I begin this report with an accusation that will initially be difficult to believe. I say that nearly all fire losses and nearly all fire deaths within the United States, caused by building fires, are the result of criminal activities by the fire insurers aimed at maximizing the profits from fire. Fire is the business of the fire insurers. To maximize the profits the burn rate must be maintained high as this guarantees a high rate of cash flow through the system. With a high burn rate guaranteeing a high cash flow through the insuring system, the pricing (via the fire rating bureaus) guarantee healthy retentions and profits. There are reasons to believe that as much as 50 percent of the dollars entering the system are retained within the system.

In order to control fire technology and thus limit the use of fire control systems that have the potential to near eliminate serious building fires, the insurers had to control the fire codes to restrict the development of the technologies of fire detection and automatic fire suppression. This required the creation of organizations that would have the powers to do so.

During 1896 the insurers founded the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) to create fire codes and policies beneficial to the fire insurance business. Because the codes would be falsified to maintain a high burn rate, true engineers would soon be revealing the dishonesty. Therefore, in 1903 the fire insurers created a special “fire protection engineering” curriculum at Armour Institute in Chicago (which later became the Illinois Institute of Technology) to support the insurance business. The FPEs were indoctrinated into the system and acted as a barrier between the NFPA code system and the true engineering professionals. I was educated as a FPE but later became a state licensed professional engineer in Ohio. After many years of investigating the frauds of fire protection, I now consider fire protection engineering to be “Voodoo Engineering”.

During 1907 the fire insurers enlisted a product testing organization into its family. It was named Underwriters’ Laboratories. Underwriters Laboratory (UL) has been controlling the marketplace for fire related products and systems ever since. It is virtually impossible to market a product in any way related to fire without the UL Label being displayed. However, I accuse the UL of deliberately rigging and falsifying fire tests in ways that benefit the insurers and the manufacturers of the products and systems, and in ways that have condemned hundreds of thousands of innocent people to death and injury from fire. Not always, but often, the testing allows manufacturers to market defective and dangerous products to the public. Most important however, UL has been able to erect barriers to those products and systems that have the potential to near eliminate the fire losses within the United States. By preventing the technology that could nearly eliminate fire; the insurers have maintained fire at an enormously high and profitable level in America. I estimate that the evil regulators of the fire marketplace have caused more than one million fire casualties (deaths and serious injuries) within the United States since 1900.

Granted, these accusations are difficult to believe. But, those who have sufficient concern for the children who will burn tomorrow, and therefore read the entire report below, will realize that my accusations have validity.

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AMERICA’S DEADLIEST FRAUD EXPLAINED

PART 1 - THE AMERICAN FIRE PROBLEM

THE MAGNITUDE OF THE U. S. FIRE PROBLEM:

THE HOME IS WHERE THE FIRES KILL: Home fires cause approximately 95 percent of all fire deaths caused by building fires. The Feds make it seem that the home is not quite that dangerous from fire by tossing outdoor fires including automobile fires resulting from crashes into the mix. But, if a building fire causes deaths, almost certainly, it happened in a home. The home need not be that deadly from fire. It took a lot of planning and dedication to make it so. The Feds define the American fire problem thusly:

“The U.S. fire problem, on a per capita basis, is one of the worst in the industrial world.To put this in context, the annual losses from floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and other natural disasters combined in the United States average just a fraction of those from fires.”‘Fire in the United States’, 13th Edition, Federal Emergency Management Agency Page 1, Oct 2004

THE NATIONAL COST OF FIRE: The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA, claims that the fire losses within the United States (as of 2006) totaled 317 billion dollars. I disagree. I believe the total cost of fire is many times that sum. I extracted the following Quote from page 1-5 of the Fourteenth Edition of the NFPA “Fire Protection Handbook, “According to estimates by the NFPA Fire Analysis Department, the annual fire death toll in the United States has averaged about 12,000 a year over the past 20 years”. “A high death rate seems to be peculiarly an American problem. No other industrialized nation comes close to the American fire death rate.” The above death toll apparently included about 4000 non-building fire deaths in automobiles, etc. In recent years the fire deaths have declined dramatically according to Federal fire loss data but today’s fie statistics are suspect for three reasons. 1) Less than half of the fire departments are reporting to the Feds. 2) The Feds have been lying about many fire related matters. 3) Because a phony smoke detector has been sold into more than 80 million U.S. homes the data is being cooked to help cover up the fraud (more on this later).

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOLUTION TO FIRE

HOW THE FIRE INSURANCE SYSTEM WORKED: During the 1800s insurance was compartmented. The fire insurers did not insure lives or health. But, insuring buildings was similar to insuring lives. The number of buildings was great. And fire was a random event. Therefore, just as the probable number of deaths could be calculated with great accuracy, the underwriters could calculate the annual fire loss for the properties insured very accurately. Then, the underwriters would set the rate (price) sufficiently high to capture monies well in excess of the calculated payout. However, there was an exception, the catastrophic loss. For example, if a whole city, or even a large section of a city burned in one great fire, that could bankrupt the system. So, zoning ordinances were legislated so that there would be a designated clear space between buildings and sufficient fire departments were organized so that spread of fire across the clear spaces could be prevented. When buildings were built close together a

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firewall would be required to prevent spread from building to building. Large buildings such as hospitals, hotels, apartments, schools, high rise office buildings were divided by floors and by rooms so that usually only one part of the larger building would burn at one time. Hence, the insurers could predict the sum of the annual fire losses quite well and set the rates accordingly.

THE NEW KIND OF CATASTROPHIC FIRE: During the last half of the 19th century this nation was becoming industrialized. This was the beginning of the industrial revolution. This industrial age spawned the use of electricity, enormous production facilities and the serious risk of loss of production and sales. When a production unit burned it could be a year or more before a lost production facility could be rebuilt and back in operation. Meanwhile competitors would be grabbing you customers and important employees. And, often a production operation was inside a single building ripe with fire hazardous conditions. The industrialists wanted business interruption insurance as well as property protection. The industrial plant and the warehousing became the new catastrophic loss that could bankrupt the insurers. THE ULTIMATE SOLUTIN TO FIRE: A solution to this industrial fire problem became essential to the insurers and also to the business owners. The solution came in the form of a fire sprinkler system. It’s development began about 1850 with perforated pipes at the ceiling. The water would be turned on manually by a worker nearby the fire. By 1878 the Parmelee sprinkler head came on line. They were installed perhaps every ten feet on pipes at the ceiling. A seal held back the water. A fusible link of eutectic metal (that would melt abruptly at a certain set temperature) held the water seal in place. When a fire occurred, the fusible links that held back the water on the sprinklers immediately above the fire would melt and a spray of water would douse the fire below. Hose lines would also be available in case the sprinkler spray did not completely control the fire. Because fire can grow amazingly fast, a sprinkler above the fire that will get the water flowing soon and reliably was the solution to the insurers and the industrialists needed.

FIRE SPRINKLERS BECOME INCREDIBLY RELIABLE

FIRE SPRINKLERS BECOME THE ENEMY OF THE FIRE INSURERS: The fire sprinkler system solved one problem for the fire insurers, but it created another. The Parmelee sprinkler went on line during 1878 and by 1898 it had proven to be so incredibly reliable at controlling fires that the insurers began to think of a sprinkler protected plant as a “no loss” risk. But risk was essential to the insurers. It is the risk of fire that creates the market for fire insurance. Insurance rates for protected properties sometimes are less than ten per cent of the rates for similar properties without protection. If one billion dollars are being lost due to fires, the underwriters can justify rates set to bring two billion dollars into the system; one billion for the losses and one billion for the overhead and profits. But, if losses are reduced by say 95 percent and therefore only 50 million dollars in value burn, there is no way the insurers could justify a billion dollars for profits and overhead. Look at it this way, insurance is a tax on the cash flow and if the cash flow shrinks to a trickle there is not much to tax.

The insurance executives realized that if the sprinkler system was further developed and would soon became practical for all buildings. If that happened the insurers would suffer greatly. Indeed, it was likely that most fire insurers would end up going out of business. Therefore, they decided that it was necessary to regulate the design of the sprinkler system:

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Therefore’ only the large industrial and commercial properties would be protected. All other buildings must remain unprotected and burn at their normal rates.

THE INSURERS CREATE A CODE MAKING ALLY

THE BIRTH OF THE MAKER OF FIRE CODES: During 1896 some New England insurance companies met and created the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). During 1896, the same year that the NFPA was created, a code that defined how sprinkler systems must be designed was published. These men knew what was needed to guarantee the continued health of the fire insurance industry. There needed to be a limit on the installations of fire sprinkler systems.PROTECT THE FACTORIES, ALLOW OTHER BUILDINGS TO BURN: The sprinkler code published by the NFPA required huge water supplies, close spacing of sprinklers, large dead ended steel pipe and other criteria that made the system much too costly and impractical for buildings other than the large industrial properties. Also, the insurers, with the help of the NFPA, promoted advantageous lies about sprinkler performance. The insurers claimed that that sprinklers were for protecting property only; they could not protect lives because the smoke would kill the occupants prior to the sprinklers opening. Homes and the compartmented “Life at Risk” type buildings, which is where the lives were being lost, were put off limits for protection. NFPA CREATED CODE TO PREVENT SPRINKLERS FOR PROTECTING LIFE: The fire insurers knew that sprinklers were necessary for protecting large, high valued and highly hazardous industrial properties. The industrial plants became profitable to insure due to the development of sprinklers. Even with sprinklers some of these properties continued to burn, but muck less frequently and with reduced sizes of the losses. But Sprinklers in all buildings would reduce the burn rate in those that had few fire hazardous conditions to the degree that the insurance rates would plummet. So the NFPA sprinkler design regulations were structured so that near 100 percent of the compartmented “Life at Risk” type buildings (including homes) were maintained off limits for protection. There was no serious change in the regulations for more than 50 years until I began to research the possible ways to reduce costs and better design the systems. SPECIAL PRIVILEDGES FOR THE INSTALLERS: By preventing sprinkler protection from being installed in the vast majority of the buildings where human life was the main concern the insurers restricted the market for sprinklers. Normally this would be objectionable to the managers of the fire sprinkler firms. But, by regulating the marketplace and creating regulations that kept the prices up to ten time excessive, and by limiting the number of installers, the few giant sprinkler corporations had market that was the next best thing to a gold mine. Less than ten giant sprinkler firms controlled the nationwide market. The regulations kept the plumbers out of the game. Experienced pipefitters could not open up competitive businesses because the requirement for large (4, 6, 8, and 10 inch) pipe required special fabrication shops and technical knowhow. The union helped keep the industry “pure”. The sprinkler installers became a semi-monopoly. And, when the managers met at the NFPA conventions to help write the appropriate fire codes (for the benefit of society, of course), who could prevent them from doing a little price fixing and manipulating of the regulations? Even the pipe fitters became an elite group and had their own union. The sprinkler companies, the

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union and the fire insurers had a strange relationship where nearly all sprinkler work was due to insurance companies requiring the installations. Except for insurance created sprinkler work there was almost none.

FIRE SPRINKLERS CAN ACTUALLY ELIMINATE THE FIRE PROBLEM

SPRIKLERS CONFIMED AS 99.98 PERCENT RELIABLE: During 1959 an article that appeared within The Rostrum dated September 1959 authored by T. Seddon Duke, an

executive of a fire sprinkler company, reported this fact, “Sprinklers Supervised by ADT Central Station and Waterflow Alarm Service have had a satisfactory performance record of 99.98 per cent! Note that a 99.98 percent reliability of fire control of fires represents close to a

total elimination of the building fire problem within the United States. The information reported by Mr. Duke was not new news to the fire professionals. For decades it was known

that fire sprinkler system is very close the final solution to fire.SPRINKLERS VIRTUALLY ELIMINATE FIRE DEATHS: During 1988, H. W. Marryatte, an Australian Fire Protection Engineer, published an analysis of fire loss data relative to sprinkler protected buildings entitled, Fire: A Century of Automatic Sprinkler Protection in Australia and New Zealand, 1886-1986. The research covered by the book confirmed that during that 100 year period (1886-1986) there were only 11 fire deaths within sprinkler protected buildings in the two countries. This amounted to approximately one fire death within sprinkler protected buildings every ten years. THE BARRIERS TO SPRINKLERS ARE THE CHILDREN KILLERS: Summing up; according to the Feds the devastation by fires exceeds that caused by floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and other natural disasters. And we have had information for decades (even before Duke and Marryatte) confirming that a fire sprinkler system will come very close to completely eliminating fire losses and fire deaths within buildings. So, the 64 billion dollar question is, Why weren’t sprinklers installed in all buildings when they were constructed? Now you know why.

THE STRATEGIES TO KEEP BUILDINGS BURNING

FIRE SAFE BUILDINGS WERE NOT PROFITABLE FOR THE INSURERS: Because buildings protected with fire sprinkler systems were almost immune to serious fires they therefore did not generate sufficient profits for the insurers. Therefore, using the NFPA codes as to control sprinkler installations, the insurers developed the strategy to overprice sprinklers, over regulate the system and promote the idea that sprinklers were too slow to operate to protect human life. Therefore, sprinklers were to be installed only for property protection and also be limited to protecting the giant industrial properties where losses would be so high as to disrupt the insurance system. Those who worked within the fire field and advocated sprinklers for properties where the insurers did not desire to have them installed often were ridiculed, harassed and harmed for interference with the established policies. OVERPRICING PROTECTION: Probably the most effective way to limit the installations of sprinklers in any buildings was by overpricing the protection. One strategy was to require extremely excessive water requirements for sprinklers. Within a light hazard property such as a hotel, hospital or high rise, the average number of sprinklers that would be opened by a fire

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was less than two. Therefore, nearly all fires would be controlled by 15 to 50 gallons per minute. Indeed, with better design of the sprinkler and with better engineering of the system, 25 gpm would do the job. But, by requiring extremely excessive water for the system and then by preventing installations if additional water for fire department water streams, it was possible to prevent sprinklers from being installed in close to 100 percent of those building types where human life was most at risk. OVERPRICING THE WATER SUPPLIES: The overpricing of protection especially involved overpricing the water supply. Although with proper engineering and some revision of the sprinkler design, a 25 gpm water supply would protect probably 98 percent of the time, with the sprinkler demand married to the hose stream demand, and the “authority having jurisdiction” being able to arbitrarily set the water requirement, demands of 2000 gpm to 5000 gpm were not unusual. Thus, existing domestic connections (the already available water within the building) never qualified. The underground pipe from a city main to the building was required to be a minimum of 4 inch size. Frequently, even the amount of water in the city main would be ruled inadequate. Thus an elevated tank (costing say $50,000.00) or a fire pump installation of $20,000 to $50,000.00 would qualify. The pump had to be “approved” by Underwriters’ Laboratory. In contrast, an adequate and very reliable commercial centrifugal pump installation, keyed to the real water need, might cost $2000.00. PROCESS WATER WAS NOT ALLOWED TO PUT THE FIRE OUT: In many cases, even when an industrial plant had underground water mains up to 10 inch or 12 inch size providing thousands of gallons of water for the industrial processes, the insurers would not allow the process water to be used to fight the fire. They would insist on installing a completely separate underground water system solely for fire protection. DISSENTERS OFTEN HAD THEIR CAREERS RUINED: I believe it was about 1956 when I gave a talk to the New York chapter of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE) on sprinkler protection. I explained how sprinklers could be modernized, how they should be used to protect life; and hospitals, high rises and similar buildings should be sprinklered. I expected some praise for my foresight. All listened politely, which was the custom, but when I finished I was astounded at the animosity of displayed. It really shocked me. When the Nevada State Fire Marshal, Dan Quinan tried to get the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas and another hotel sprinkler protected he was removed from office. The NFPA, with the backing of the fire insurers and others who benefited from fire, had an ability to isolate and diminish those who questioned the intent of the codes.

THE EASY AND AVAILABLE SOLUTION TO FIRE

WHY WATER SPRAY IS THE NEMISES OF FIRE: Fire simply cannot exist within a cool environment. When something is burning it has first been raised by a heat source to its ignition temperature. For it to continue to burn it must be able to maintain an environment of extreme heat. Let us say for this discussion the magic temperature needed for a fire to continue to combust is 1000 degrees F. Reduce the heat faster than it is being generated and the fire dies. It is that simple. Water spray form is extremely efficient at absorbing heat because the tiny drops add up to a very large surface area in contact with the heat. WATER SPRAY IS THE GREAT HEAT DESTROYER: When one gallon of water is raised from 62 degrees F. to 212 degrees F. and then converted to steam it will absorb approximately 9,300 British thermal units of heat. Most of the heat absorption results from the

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conversion of water at 212 degrees to steam. That conversion to steam process absorbs 8,000 of the 9300 total BTUs. Therefore, the effectiveness of water as a killer of fire depends largely on the quantity of water that is converted to steam. When water is applied to a fire as a hose stream or as large drops from a nozzle most of the water runs off as moderately heated water. Very little is converted to steam; hence the cooling ability of the water is largely wasted. However, when water is applied as very small drops much of the water is converted to steam. Therefore, a small amount of water applied in small drops can do a better job than a large amount applied in large drops. SPRINKLERS ARE FAR MORE EFFICIENT THAN HOSE STREAMS: The drop size from a fire hose must be relatively large so that the stream will travel a greater distance. Because the sprinkler will be close to the early fire a very fine drop spray will be most effective. Further, a sprinkler will begin to apply the water spray promptly while the fire is still tiny and easier to control. That is why one gallon of water can control an early fire while a hundred thousand gallons may be needed five or ten minutes later. This is why fire department officials tolerated the corrupt NFPA fire sprinkler codes that severely restricted the installation of sprinklers for decades; and still does today to a lesser degree. Water discharged from a small orifice sprinkler at a high pressure will be more effective than a large drop discharged at a low pressure from a large orifice sprinkler. Hence, the key to a practical sprinkler system for the home is to use small orifice sprinklers at higher pressure than the NFPA minimum allowed pressure (7 psi). That way the limited amount of water in a home can be extremely effective. The NFPA “engineers” rigged fire tests to justify the creation of corrupt codes to prevent the use of small orifice sprinklers in homes. THE CONCERNS OF THE FIREDEPARTMENT OFFICIALS: The ability of the fire sprinkler system to eliminate fire was not lost on the fire department officials. The reality is that a remote fire department cannot compete with a fire sprinkler system. Today a fire department has many duties including medical and hazardous materials control. And because millions of homes and other buildings have been built without protection it will require decades to protect them all, if it is ever accomplished. Thus, today the fire officials are not fearful of losing their jobs when sprinklers are installed. But, during the early years of the 20th Century the fire insurers’ opposition to sprinklers was shared by many fire officials. Hence, the restrictions placed on improving and marketing sprinklers by the NFPA code system were not opposed by fire officials.

THE 95 PEERCENT SOLUTIONS TO HOME FIRE DEATHS

DEVELOPING PRACTICAL HOME SPRINKLER SYSTEMS: Approximately 95 percent of all fire deaths (caused by building fires) occur within homes. Historically, sprinklers have been very close to a 100 percent guarantee that fire will not kill. Therefore, all that was needed to make homes fire safe was to develop a practical and affordable fire sprinkler for homes. This was accomplished but the NFPA, employing deliberate illegal methods, barred that protection from being made available to save lives. The main problem to be solved was to engineer a Life Safety System that would perform with the amount of water that a home has. That varies depending on pressure in the city main, the length and size of the pipe from the street to the home and elevation differences. But, 7 to 15 gpm will cover most homes.

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HOW TO FIT THE SPRINKLER TO THE WATER SUPPLY: The sprinkler that has been standard for about a hundred years has a ½ inch orifice. It will discharge 15 gpm at 7 psi. To design for an effective spray pattern while discharging only 7 gpm would require an orifice in the ¼ to 5/16th inch range. Discharging 7 gpm at roughly 20 psi would be a good fit for most homes. This would be met with a ¼ inch orifice. LET’S APPLY SOMECOMMON SENSE: Consider a fire starting down stairs by a lit cigarette dropped in a wastebasket of paper beside the upholstered sofa after the last person has gone upstairs to bed. The fire could smolder for a little while producing negligible smoke. Then it may flame and begin growing very rapidly unknown to those upstairs who may or may not be asleep. FLAMING FIRES ARE EXTREMELY FAST AND DEADLY: A flaming fire can increase rapidly while those not within the fire room will not be aware of its existence. In less than 5 minutes that fire, growing silently with no signs of its existence outside the room where it exists, can go into flashover condition. Within the next 60 seconds the hallways will become untenable. Black smoke, rich with toxic gases and temperatures at 4 to 7 times that of boiling water, will be pushed throughout the home by the overpressure created by the fire. The parent probably will be unable to even cross the corridor from the master bedroom to get to the kids. The parents may be able to survive only by leaping out the window in their own room. SPRINKLERDS STOP THE FIRE’S GROWTH: Now assume there is a sprinkler head in the ceiling that will put out 7 gpm in a fine spray. First of all, it will prevent flashover. The 1000 degrees temperature at the ceiling cannot develop with a fine spray cooling the ceiling. Secondly, rather rapidly the spray will wet the rug and the surface areas of most of the furnishings including the sofa. The spray may or may not completely extinguish the fire. If shielded from the spray, the paper in the basket and the exposed side of the sofa may continue to burn, but the amount of toxic gases produced and the heat will be slight in comparison to the non-sprinklered situation. There will be some discomfort, but the moment the sprinkler opens the alarm will have sounded. There will be no problem reaching the children. The actual fire damage will be small in comparison. When the wood, metal or glass furniture is wiped dry probably they will have suffered no damage. And, most important, all will be able to leave the home without injury. TEST YOUR WATER SUPPLY YOURSELF: Make a judgment for yourself. Turn on the bathtub faucet and collect the water in a two gallon bucket while timing the fill. If filled in 15 seconds that would show you have at least 8 gpm available for fire control. Go into the back yard and spray water out of a hose and visualize how much water would be spread around any room by a sprinkler. Does it not seem that a small fire when first born would have a tough time killing you and the kids when surrounded by that much water? There is sufficient water already available in every home that has a water connection, to save lives and to dramatically reduce fire damage. SIMPLE AND INEXPENSIVE PIPING IS RECOMMENDED: To minimize the pressure loss in the pipe and thus maximize the pressure at the sprinkler head, I recommend a one inch copper or plastic pipe loop; although a smaller pipe would also suffice. A water flow valve designed to operate with flows as low as 5 gpm will be needed. Otherwise the protecting of a home with the available water in the home is entirely practical. The larger supply line to the home or the secondary (packaged) supply is not needed. The 5 to 10 thousand NFPA controlled sprinkler is not a necessity and, I say the NFPA has caused the deaths and injuries of perhaps as many as a million Americans with its barriers to protection for the home. Granted,

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the insurers profited greatly from the barriers to protection for the home. But if the children are saved I will shed no tears for the insurers. But know this, the NFPA and the fire protection engineers deliberately and with great cunning, falsified fire test to prevent you, the homeowner from installing a practical fire sprinkler system in your home, even when you are building a new home. AMERICA’S MOST PROLIFIC KILLERS OF CHILDREN: This is the reality of fire and water; if even two to five gpm is discharged into a room in a home through a small orifice nozzle at a pressure of 20 psi or more, the cooling effect of that spay and the dampening of most of the combustibles will slow the fire, and limit fire spread. Even if the spray does not completely kill the fire it will do two things. One it will maintain survivable conditions sufficiently to allow all occupants to escape unharmed. Two, it will allow for easy total fire control with a manually applied fog nozzle. Even if the sprinklers do not completely kill the fire and further control does not occur until the professional fire fighters arrive, it is close to a certainty that the fire will still be confined to the room of origin and be under control when the professionals arrive. Thus, this protection will save the lives of many firefighters as well as the occupants of homes. That the NFPA has, over a period exceeding 100 years, deliberately and with great cunning prevented the application of this technology to homes make the NFPA America’s most prolific killer of children during the 20th Century.

AN ALTERNATE SOLUTION TO FIRE

THE HOME WAS DEVOID OF FIRE PROTECTION: Years ago I realized that even if properly engineered fire sprinkler systems were allowed by code to protect homes, many of the home would remain without sprinklers. The reason is that installing sprinklers in an already built home, even if proper engineering of the system was allowed, it would still involve considerable expense. It is not an easy thing to install new pipes in an old building. So, at a time when my research was being appreciated and before the gurus of fire protection decided I was a menace to their profits and had to be stopped, I was appointed to four sectional committees under the NFPA code making system. They dealt with four different classes of fire detection systems for the industrial and commercial properties. All were oriented toward property protection. There was no code defining a fire detection system for the home where about 95 percent of all fire deaths (caused by building fires) occurred. So, I immediately set about to create a code to define a fire detection system for the home. I did not ask the top people at the NFPA if I could do so, I just set about doing it. WHY FIRE DETECTION MAKES SENSE: The primary reason why fire kills is because when it initiates within one room of a home it can grow large without making its presence felt elsewhere. For example, often a young child playing with matches in his bedroom will set fire to the hanging bedding or whatever. When it flares up he will often hide in the closet fearing punishment. The mother, perhaps busy in the kitchen will not know of the fire until it becomes a roaring monster, perhaps even into the flashover condition. By then it will be impossible to enter the room to find the child. Detecting the fire while it is still small is the key to fire safety.FIRE BEGINS LIKE A TIGER CUB: The early fire is like a tiger cub. It cannot yet kill but it is easy to kill. However, give that fire a five minute window to grow and then it becomes the killer. The key to fire safety is to know that the fire exists to moment it starts. Then, one has a choice, quickly extinguish that fire or get everyone out. The fire officials say get out and call the 911. But I say if you can extinguish that early fir promptly, do so. Number one, you will

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save your home and belongings. Number two, you will save Uncle Charlie who is old, feeble and will take ten minutes to get out of bed and outdoors. AUTOMATIC OR MANUAL APPLICATION OF WATER: Water spray kills fire quickly when it can be directly applied. A fire sprinkler will do that although sometimes there are obstructions that block the spray. A fog nozzle on a small hose will do an even better job but it is essential that the hose delivery of the spray be prompt. If the home has a reliable fire detection system and also a small diameter hose (1/2 inch or smaller) quickly available, it will be possible to terminate the early fire and save both the home and lives. RESPONSE TIME vs. FREE BURN TIME: Fire officials speak of the “response time” from a fire station to the most distant home within that service area. That helps justify more stations, more equipment and more manpower. But it does not have much meaning relative the practical matter of saving lives. The more pertinent time is the “free burn time”. The free burn time is the time from the initiation of the fire until water is actually being applied to the fire. And the time when a search of the home for survivors (or bodies) becomes possible may be much later. A call to 911 will not occur until the fire is discovered and the fire could be well advanced by then. The call to 911 must be relayed to the nearby FD and the first arriving pumper will begin by laying out hose to a hydrant. The hose must be laid out and the hydrant must be opened and the attack will necessary before any search occurs if the building is well involved already. Those not out on the front lawn when that first truck pulls up, probably will be coming out horizontally.A NATIONAL CODE IS CREATED: As a chairman of four NFPA fire codes I was able to put together a code group, including fire detection experts to create a residential fire detection code (NFPA-74). Because the fire sprinkler system had been, for many decades, near 100 percent perfect at preventing fire deaths, and because the trigger for the sprinkler was a heat detector, we recommended heat detectors throughout the home. Also, it is a fact that nearly all home fire deaths involve hot flaming fires. It is very rare that a body is carried out of a home except there has been a serious hot flaming fire. I was able to get the committee to create the code, vote for it and get it on the agenda for the coming national NFPA convention that it was up for national adoption before the fire insurers were fully organized to kill it. But, I presented it for adoption about 9:00 AM in the morning, and the insurers had a very impressive array of fire engineers and insurance professional that were determined to kill it. I had not realized the insurers would so blatantly try to kill a system to warn the occupants of a home of fire, so I had no one prepared to back me up. For nearly four hours, well into the noon hour, those who opposed the code did their best but I kept speaking of the logic of the occupants of a home knowing that a fire existed before it killed them. The vote was finally allowed to take place and it passed. Most of the fire officials voted for it. One chief told me after the vote that when they realized how determined the fire insurers were to kill it; they knew it had to be a good code.AMERICA’S DEADLIEST FRAUD BEGINS: The effort to kill the residential fire detection code did not succeed at the convention but soon the long term planning to kill it began. Within the section on engineering (honest as well as the voodoo kind) at the end of this report, I will provide more details on the methods used to gut the residential detection code. Here it is adequate to report that performance lies were advertised for 15 years within the NFPA Fire Journal magazine. UL falsified the laboratory testing. A federal fire test program was falsified in a most blatant way. Corruption silenced honesty. And in the end the heat detectors (the most reliable detectors) were removed from the code and a phony so-called smoke detector went into at least 80 million U.S. homes. This fraud resulted in probably 35,000 children being

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killed by fires that most likely would have walked out of their homes unharmed if honest fire detectors had been installed.

PART 2 - VOODOO ENGINEERING

As a young engineer involved in fire protection during the late 1950s I realized that there were near 100 per cent reliable solutions to fire. But the fire codes of the NFPA and the regulatory policies in general disallowed these solutions from being applied to the problem. By the 1960s I was well involved in research. My research, live fire tests and investigations that were proving that sprinklers, fire detectors, proper manual fire control methods and a new look at what we called “fire science” could indeed reduce the building fire problem to a negligible level. However, the greater my efforts to solve the problem with technology and better logic, the fiercer were the efforts to prevent change. Some of this was to be expected. But, the dishonesty and levels of corruption employed to prevent change became so blatant that gradually I began to realize there was more to the resistance than I initially believed. In all other technological fields change did occur. Slowly, I began to realize that there was much more to the resistance than would be normal. Fire was causing enormous destruction of property and lives. Was it possible that the regulatory system was actually determined to maintain the high burn rate because many organizations profited from the destruction of lives and property. Finally I realized the answer was yes. The lives of children were pawns to the wealth generated by fire. The children must burn because that is part of the high stakes game that is being played.

THE CHILDREN MUST BURN

WHY THE CHILDREN MUST BURN: There is nothing that sells a product or system quite as well as dead children. At the beginning of this report I spoke of the monies that are involved in fire protection; mainly the kind that protects the investments, not the children. What sells the fire insurance policies? What convinces the public the pay for the fire stations, the half million dollar fire trucks and the salaries of the firefighters? What sells the fire extinguishers, the fire rated doors, the fire resistance on the steel, the fire hose stations and the federal fire bureaucracies. There are many things that convince the taxpayer to support, and the consumer to buy, what is promoted by the fire codes. But nothing sells like a dead child. It is in the home that the children burn. And it is the home that is the cash cow for the fire insurers. It is the home fire and the burned children that feed the system. No one will admit it. All will deny it. But if there is anything that is off limits in the fire business it is protecting the home. The home must burn. That is the bottom line of the fire business. If you doubt it, read the engineering reports below.

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FIRE ENGINEERING HELPED KILL THE CHILDREN

ALL TECHNOLOGIES FLOURISHED, EXCEPT FIRE ENGINEERING: Every American knows of the technological progress that has evolved within the United States during the 20th Century. Think of the marvels in bridge and highway construction, tall buildings, the automobile and airplane, space flight, communication and the computers. But there is one branch of engineering and science that remained largely stagnant for a hundred years. I was able to bring about some changes during the last half of the 20th century, but every inch of the way was like running through mud. The resistance, the deceptions and the lies were never ending. Of course, fire departments today have more comfortable stations, larger fire trucks, taller ladders, more bells and whistles, stronger unions and higher costs. But, when all the glitter is removed, the firefighters fight the fires in the same old way and many pay with their lives for the dishonesty within the fire codes. Most of the idiocy of the regulatory system is hard to believe, but it is all true. I describe the corruption within the codes and the engineering below. All of it existed, some of it has been moderated, but the fundamental obstructions remain. ENGINEERING INSANITY: Underwriters’ Laboratories (UL) tested fire sprinkler heads in their test facility. The UL standard 199 defined the test procedures. One square foot collection pans were set on a plane four feet below the sprinkler deflector. The sprinkler was required to produce ten times the density at 2 feet from the sprinkler as at 8 feet distant. At a distance of 6 feet from the spot on the plane below the sprinkler, the sprinkler was required to produce a water density below 0.06 gallons a minute, a pitifully low density, enormously inadequate for industrial property protection. If a sprinkler was designed to produce more even water distribution over a wider area of coverage, it was disapproved. Thus, the sprinkler was intentionally mandated to be grossly inferior to what proper engineering could create. Normally, I would term this as voodoo engineering at its worst, except there was worse.INTENTIONAL DIMINISHING THE QUALITY OF THE INDUSTRIAL SPRINKLER SYSTEM: The only reason I could see for the intentional diminishing of the control capability of the sprinkler was to guarantee that the sprinkler would not make factories so safe that none would burn. While a too great burning of too hazardous high valued buildings was to be avoided, some plant losses was necessary were necessary to justify insuring the properties. There were other methods employed to guarantee some sprinkler failures that I will also discuss. COIMPARTMENTED BUIDINGS AND HOMES MUST BURN: If sprinklers had the capability to create a “no-loss” building category with the industrial properties, think how safe the sprinklers could make a hospital, a hotel or a high rise. These are of the low hazard category where sprinklers could virtually eliminate fire. By severely restricting the water distribution from a sprinkler the code was able to require four sprinklers be installed within 16 by 16 foot room. I proved a sprinkler could readily protect a 20 by 20 foot room and probably even a greater size. The sever restriction on sprinkler coverage due to UL testing requirements and NFPA code requirements at least doubled the cost of installing sprinklers in compartmented buildings. But, that was by no means the end of the voodoo engineering as related to making sure the “right” buildings burned.

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NO CREDIT WAS GIVEN FOR HIGH PRESSURE: Clearly, any water system that has high (but still safe) pressure has an advantage over a system with low pressure. But the NFPA code disallowed the advantage. NFPA determined that a system fed by water at 100 psi was no better from a design and cost viewpoint than one at 40 psi, provided the 40 psi could meet the minimum requirement. If the water pressure equated to 15 psi at the top of the riser, that was all that counted. This top of the riser pressure also was applicable to most industrial and commercial buildings. Even combustible storage in cardboard cartons piled ten foot high could be NFPA code “protected” with 15 psi at the top of the riser. I calculated for some systems (protecting hazardous properties) the water density that would be delivered at the end sprinklers, fed by one inch pipes. The density for a10 foot high combustible storage warehouse would be less than the density later imposed on a system protecting a home. Seemingly the intent was to guarantee that some industrial properties would burn, thus making sure insurance would be needed. In the case of protecting the home, clearly the intent was to make sprinklers in homes as scarce as possible. DEAD END SYSTEMS WERE DESIGNED BY VOODOO ENGINEERING: For about 70 years the NFPA got away with dead end iron pipe sprinkler systems with the available pressure ignored. This represented either a very high level of stupidity or very clever dishonesty. Near the riser (the entry of the water) the density would be great because the pipe sizes could be 4 inch to 8 inch depending on various factors. So, if the fire started near the riser the fire probably would be well controlled. But if the fire started at the end of the system under the one inch size pipes, the density could be most inadequate for control. This could be made even much worse because one inch steel pipes could corrode to the degree that they became totally closed. FITTING THE ORIFICE SIZE TO THE HAZARD WAS PROHIBITED: The NFPA codes were especially oriented toward preventing sprinklers from being installed in the light hazard Life-at-Risk type buildings to protect lives. One of the many ways this was accomplished was to prevent any but the “standard” ½ inch orifice sprinkler from being installed. Assume there is a hotel room with the dimensions of 16 by 26 feet. The main bed area is 16 by 18 feet. A sprinkler would be required in the bath, the entry way and the closet. The main area would require four sprinklers as none could be more than 7.5 feet from a wall. Even though three of the sprinklers covered small areas (such as the closet) all had to have a half inch orifice and all had to discharge at least 15 gpm. Thus, adjusting for balancing (the pressure at the heads would vary depending on friction loss) would be 110 gallons a minute. But, it had been proven (in Australia for example) that in an occupancy such as a hotel/motel the average number of sprinklers opening was less than two and that 10 gpm per sprinkler was adequate. Voodoo engineering increased a demand for 20 gpm to 110 gpm plus three not needed sprinklers were added.HOW DOES FIRE BURN THROUGH X FIRE RATED WALLS? One time, to test the ability of sprinklers to confine a fire to one room I had a wood stud wall built with nothing but 1/8th inch wood paneling covering each side (nothing inside the wall). Then I put a wood crib (about 2-1/2 feet high beside the wall an lighted it. When the sprinkler went off the spray hit the wall and the fire never progressed into the wall let alone to the other side. This was confirmation in spades that fire within a sprinklered apartment, nursing home or motel would not burn through a fire rated wall to involve the adjoining room or apartment. However, when the NFPA was finally forced to recognize pressure and hydraulic calculations, a gimmick was put in the code to guarantee that it would be difficult and costly to protect. A

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requirement to design for a 3000 square foot area could involve say 8 separate rooms in say a motel or nursing home. That means the fire in the sprinklered property had to burn through 7 walls; each rated either ½ hour or one hour. This could involve calculating for more than 49 open sprinklers within 8 different rooms. This was an occupancy type where designing for four open sprinklers with a 50 gpm water supply would include a very comfortable safety factor. Of course all his had to happen before the firefighters arrived. Clearly, voodoo engineering is not intended to protect, it is intended to prevent protection.THE RICHMOND, CALIFOIRNIA SAFEWAY WAREHOUSE FIRE: For many years I warned that the industrial properties were subjected to a sprinkler code that greatly overpriced protection while under protecting the facility.

DESPITE DESIGN STUPIDITY THE SYSTEM USUALLY PERFORMED: I do not believe there has ever been another system that has been so poorly engineered and has performed so superbly. What were the reasons? There were several. First, although some criterion was weak such as the 15 psi at the top of a riser and the very weak 7 psi at the sprinkler, in most instances the available pressure was above the minimum. Another reason is that many of the criterions were very excessive. Also, the primary requirement of the system was to prevent the rapid spread until hose streams were applied by the brigade or firefighters. Total extinguishment was common but not essential. The fourth reason is because water spray is such an amazing killer of fire.

SPRINKLER COSTS CAN BE REDUCED BY UP TO 90 PERCENT

INDUSTRIAL PLANT PROTECTION ALSO IS OVERPRICED: Although my primary mission relative fire safety is to protect life from fire, the same stupidity of design of protection also was applied to the industrial plant protection. As one example, when working for Seagram Distillers in New York City, one of the costly sprinkler regulations applied to our industry by the insurance industry involved bottled whiskey in cardboard cartons stored 20 feet high or greater. The insurers classed this type of storage as being especially hazardous and, the water demand for the sprinkler system alone (not counting fire department hose streams) was set at 4,450 gpm. That is a lot of water to push through the pipes and the cost of protection a facility was rather expensive. After many months of effort, finally I was able to get an O.K. to test my design at the factory Mutual test facility at Norwood, Massachusetts. The storage was 21 feet high on pallets and the fire was controlled with four open sprinklers discharging a total of 190 gpm. (See the FM report No. 17792, dated June 1970, “Fire Protection Requirements For High-Piled Palletized Storage of Cased Distilled Spirits”)THE WHISKEY RACK HOUSES: The insurers had set enormous water supplies as required for the rack house where high proof whiskey was stored in wood barrels. At one Seagram warehousing facility a one million gallon reservoir and fire pumps were installed for fire protection. At a facility in Owings Mills Maryland we conducted the largest fire tests ever conducted inside a building. More than 1000 barrels of high proof alcohol was stored on wood racks to a height of 50 feet. We told the insurers they could set any fire they wanted inside the warehouse and our system would be able to control it. We controlled the fires with approximately 200 gpm.

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THE KANSAS CITY KANSAS MEDICAL FACILITY: A huge medical facility was under construction in Kansas City, Kansas. However after construction was well under way it became apparent there would be a ten million dollar cost overrun. I was hired to evaluate the fire protection costs. Only the basement was planned to be sprinkler protected and the low bid for this work was approximately $2.90 per square foot. The bid was not accepted and I designed a “Patton Life Safety System” that would protect the entire facility, about 1.2 million square feet of protection. This was bid at approximately 35 cents a square foot, about a 90 percent reduction in the price for the NFPA design system. Then because the entire hospital was to be sprinklered the cost of the facility was reduced by more than 5 million dollars. A system costing less than a half million dollars produced a more than 5 million dollar saving.THE OHIO NURSING HOMES: There were about 500 small nursing homes in Ohio; many of them were large old Victorian type homes where up to six guests could be housed. They did not comply with the more recently enacted nursing home fire regulations so the State Fire Marshal, Bob Lynch decided that if they were sprinkler protected they would be more fire safe than the more modern code complying homes that were not required to be sprinklered. Bob convinced me to relocate to Ohio. The Patton Life Safety System design standard had been adopted into the State of Ohio Building Code. Based on the NFPA sprinkler design code none of the nursing homes had adequate water supplies for sprinkler protection So, the sprinkler contractors were bidding system based on installing elevated water tanks at about $50,000.00 just for the water,. The bids for ost bids for NFPA systems were pushing $100.00 and also requiring 4 inch steel pipe hanging below the ceilings. I was able to bid properly engineered protection for process in the $8,000.00 to $12,000.00 range. All was going well until the HEW inspectors, without any legal authority to do so, threatened the nursing home managers with the federal Medicaid payments being cut off if they allowed non-NFPA sprinklers to be installed in their homes. The Feds preferred that the homes be burned rather than allow an engineered system to be installed.THE PIONEER HOTEL SYSTEM: The Pioneer Hotel I n Tucson Arizona, built without sprinklers as were near 100 percent of the hotels at the time, suffered a major fire. The fire resulted in xxx deaths. So the City Fire Marshal ruled that the hotel could not go back into business unless it was sprinkler protected. However, an NFPA sprinkler system would require four inch steel pipe to be installed in the corridor ceiling void where the air conditioning ducts allowed no room for such piping. Also, since there was no drop ceiling in the hotel rooms (except in the bath and entry way) pipe would have to be installed in plain view. Actually, it would have been impossible to install an NFPA type system.

I was hired by the hotel management to install a Patton Life Safety System; within the two stairwells at opposite ends of the “L” shaped building I installed 1-1/2 inch copper risers (NFPA did not allow copper pipe although it is far superior to steel). Then I snaked 1-1/4 inch flexible copper tube through the crowded hallway ceiling void on each floor. I was then able to run one inch pipe above the drop ceilings in each room to protect the bath, the entry way and the clothes closet.

This left the main bedroom area to be protected. But the throw from the bath wall to the outside wall greatly exceeded the 14 foot “throw” allowed for a sidewall sprinkler. And in many rooms the area would require 4 sprinklers for “standard coverage. This was all based on “standard” orifice pressure which was a pitiful 7 psi at the sprinkler. A friend at the Grinnell Laboratories allowed me to test the standard sidewall sprinkler at pressures up to 20 psi and greater. I proved that with a modestly higher pressure at the orifice a 20 by 20 foot room could

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be better protected than standard protection simply by applying a greater (and easy to obtain) pressure at the orifice. The copper tube Life Safety System allowed an older building, that could not be protected with an NFPA system, to be protected.

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