Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

The fire, occurring in October 2000 in Hiroshima Pref. Japan, is the first blaze in Japan that has totally burned a large-scale glue-laminated timber gymnasium. The fire also deserves close attention in terms of fire safety engineering because flashover rapidly occurred in only 9 minutes from the activation of the fire detector. The extent of char layer of the members was collected to estimate the process of the fire spread in gymnasium. A series of burning tests were conducted on the combustible objects suspected as the source of the extensive fire growth to clarify why the fire spread so rapidly in the gymnasium where a flashover had been least anticipated. The cause of the flashover was finally estimated by comparing the extent of the total heat release of respective specimens with the total heat release required to cause flashover in the whole arena. Any of countermeasures is indicated to reduce the hazard of fire anticipated in such gymnasium.