Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

The severe winter of 1962-63 produced an alarming rise in frequency of incidents involving back boiler explosions. It was estimated that there were 115 incidents compared with an estimated 44 in the previous winter. An analysis was made of 123 incident reports among those received in 1961, 1962 and 1963. In 94 of these the damage was confined to the room and boiler installation. In 83 incidents explosion damage was more serious than fire damage. A total of 82 casualties occured in 45 of the incidents. There were 3 fatalities in January 1963. The times of day when incidents are most likely to happen are mid-morning and between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. When temperatures fall below freezing point there is some evidence for a negative correlation between minimum temperature and number of incidents on a given date.