9 : Soaring Sparks Of Fire
Many families gather in the kitchen to spend time together, but it can be one of the most hazardous rooms in the house if you don't practice safe cooking behaviors. Cooking is the third leading cause of fire deaths and the leading cause of injury among people ages 65 and older. It's a recipe for serious injury or even death to wear loose clothing (especially hanging sleeves), walk away from a cooking pot on the stove, or leave flammable materials, such as potholders or paper towels, around the stove. Whether you are cooking the family holiday dinner or a snack for the grandchildren:
9 : Soaring Sparks of Fire
During winter months, December, January and February, there are more home fires than any other time of year. Heating devices like space heaters and wood stoves make homes comfortable, but should be used with extra caution. Heating is the second leading cause of fire death and the third leading cause of injury to people ages 65 and older.
January 3, 1932Fire destroyed both Morrill blocks in Franklin Square. Twenty six businesses were destroyed. The blaze required firemen from as far away as Haverhill, Massachusetts, and burned so hotly that the sprinkler system in the Strand Theater was set off. It was called the worst conflagration in the history of the city by local newspapers.
The Morrill Block rose six stories high on Third Street and Central Avenue and was built of wood. The section facing Second Street was built of brick and rose three stories. A fire alarm went off at 10:25 pm. A small fire was located in the basement of the Lothrop-Farnham clothing store. As fireman battled that blaze, a second fire was discovered in the next store. Another alarm was sounded as the flames shot out of the back of the store and began climbing up the building. Flames spread with startling rapidity and the intense heat forced firefighters to keep their distance.
Flying sparks and embers carried by a howling northeast wind threatened houses up to a mile away. The fire chief said if the house roofs were not blanketed by snow many homes would have burned. Fifty people were forced into a blinding snowstorm, many of them in their night clothes. Local residents took them into the warmth of their own homes.
Telephone and telegraph poles were knocked down, wires were cut, and the city was in total darkness for hours as firefighters fought their ways through a foot and a half of slush. Eight to 10 hydrants gushed out thousands of gallons of water. Three pumpers sucked water from the Cocheco River. It was about 45 minutes after the general alarm was sounded that one section of the building was a blazing furnace. A short time later, an explosion of unknown cause rocked the building. The roof crashed in after that, followed by three of the four walls.
Hot work operations such as welding, cutting, soldering and any activities that involve using open flames or excessive heat can cause multiple health and safety hazards. These activities also carry the threat of industrial fires that could be disastrous for your staff, your business premises as well as projects under construction.
Carrying out hot work activities safely is an important part of fire safety in the workplace, but to do so, you need to identify hot work hazards and control measures that will effectively reduce risks and keep workers safe.
By keeping the area where hot work will be carried out clear, you keep fire safety risks to a minimum. This control measure can also reduce other health and safety risks such as the risk of slips and trips, which could have disastrous consequences when coupled with hot work hazards. A clear area also enables workers to safely evacuate the building in the event of a fire.
If hot work activities are carried out regularly by your workers, you may want to consider designating an area of your workplace for welding, brazing, soldering and other tasks involving heat or open flames. These areas should be designed to be as safe as possible, so flammable or combustible objects should be kept to a minimum and covered with protective, fire-resistant materials. It should also be possible to restrict access to these areas.
One of the best ways to reduce hot work risks is to improve the overall fire safety of your workplace. Fire safety policies and procedures should be up to date, relevant and thorough. Workers should be trained to use fire safety equipment such as fire extinguishers and fire-retardant blankets. They should also be made aware of and trained to follow control measures such as smoke alarms, sprinklers and evacuation procedures.
A device is provided for heating a room by convection using the heat from a conventional radiation heat source. The heating device further acts as a fireplace guard when the heat source is a fire to substantially prevent sparks or other small particles of combustion from entering the room in which the fireplace is located. The device includes a threshold unit and a plurality of spaced pipes. The pipes are supported by the threshold unit while a screen member such as metal gauze is connected between the pipes. An opening in the threshold unit is adjacent the floor surface of the room in which the heat source is located. The radiation from the heat source raises the temperature of the pipes while relatively cool air enters the opening in the threshold unit and passes into the pipes. The temperature of the air is increased by the heated pipes and exits from the top thereof to heat the room by convection. The threshold unit can comprise a number of separate units which are joined together by a hinge construction so that the length of the threshold unit can be varied and also to permit access to the radiant heat source.
The invention relates to a movable fire-guard used to be placed in front of the opening of the fire-space of an open fire, fire-grate, gas-fire or an electric radiant heater. The fire-guard not only arrests flying sparks and leaves the fire still visible but also distributes the heat generated in the room to be heated by the fire in a more agreeable way over the space of said room.
With the increasing concern over the depletion of energy resources, a variety of worthwhile and economical energy conserving devices have been devised. In this regard, fireplace convection heaters have been developed. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,368,545 to Ibbitson a hinged fireplace guard is described. Air enters through a lower inlet thereof and passes upwardly due to convection and exits through an outlet. Air can be introduced through openings to provide combustion air to the fire behind the fireplace guard. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,112,915 to Slavik a fireplace heater is described in which air drawn in by conduction moves into a heating chamber. The heating chamber includes conduits for communicating with openings in a fireplace guard which release the heated air.
According to the invention the object aimed at is attained in that the fire-guard is provided with at least one row of spaced apart pipes which each extend from a given level above the base of the guard to a higher level and are so secured to one another as to form a grid-shaped screen. These pipes receive the radiation energy escaping from the fire into the room and convert said energy escaping from the fire into the room and convert said energy into heat to heat the air contained in the pipes. The result thereof is that the pipes operate as chimneys, consequently, suck cooler air out of a layer lying just above the floor, heat said air and return at their upper ends the heated air into the room. Produced thereby in the room is a circulation of air, which distributes the heat generated by the radiation energy over the room in a way which is agreeable to the person or persons who is (are) in the room. Another advantage of this fire-guard is that it is very much cooled by the currents of air produced in the pipes, so that one cannot burn oneself when touching the guard, as is possible with the known guards consisting of gauze.
It is observed that one has already proposed in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,368,545 to use the heat of the flue-gas flowing along the doors of the furnace of a stove and the heat of the radiation of the fire falling on said doors for heating the air in cavities made in the doors and being in open communication with the room to be heated both at their lower and their upper ends. Also these cavities operate as chimneys and produce a circulation of heated air in the room. However, in this case it is not a question of a movable fire-guard, which, when it has the right shape and dimensions, can be disposed in front of an existing fire-place or put aside, when its use is not desired, but of a permanent part, viz. a door or doors of a stove. The problem, how the radiation emitted by the fire and escaping through the opening of the open fire-place, said radiation often heating the persons, who are present in the room, on their sides facing the fire-place too strongly and on their sides remote from the fire-place not at all, could be used with greater efficiency for an even and all-round heating of said persons, is not solved in that patent disclosure.
It has appeared that in many cases the effect of the fire-guard and the visibility of the fire can be improved, when the guard is provided with at least two rows of pipes which are situated one behind the other. If then all pipes of the guard should be parallel to one another, it is recommended to dispose the pipes of each row and those of the or any other row in horizontal staggered relation. However, it is also possible to construct the fire-guard, in such a way, that the pipes of each row and those of the or any other row cross.
In order to maintain in an extremely efficient fire-guard, consequently, in a guard having many pipes per unity of width of the guard, the visibility of the fire the guard may have a number of pipes which at least partly consist of transparent material. One must then keep in mind that transparent pipes are less adapted to convert radiation emitted by a fire into heat than opaque pipes and that dull black pipes take in more radiation than shiny metal pipes, which reflect a great part of the radiation energy. 041b061a72