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Fire Safety Challenges of ‘Green’ Buildings and Attributes: Summary Findings
By: Brian J. Meacham, Meacham Associates, USA
Margaret McNamee, Lund University, Sweden
Overview
In 2012, the Fire Protection Research Foundation (FPRF) supported a literature review related to fire safety challenges of ‘green’ (sustainable) building materials, systems (technologies) and features [1]. The aims of that work were to: identify documented fire incidents in ‘green’ buildings; define a specific set of elements in ‘green’ building design, including configuration and materials, which, without mitigating strategies, increase fire risk, decrease safety or decrease building performance in comparison with ‘traditional’ construction; identify and summarize existing best practice case studies in which the risk introduced by specific ‘green’ building design elements has been explicitly addressed; and compile research studies related to incorporating building safety, life safety and fire safety as an explicit element in ‘green’ building indices, identifying gaps and specific needed research areas.
In the eight years since the 2012 report was published, there have been several major fire events which involved ‘green’ materials, systems and features (collectively, ‘green’ attributes) in buildings, including the tragic Grenfell Tower fire in London (involving combustible insulation); the Dietz & Watson cold storage warehouse in Delanco, New Jersey (involving photovoltaic panels, combustible insulation); and the 2019 energy storage system (ESS) explosion and fire in Arizona. While each of these can be categorized in many ways, they (and many others) include materials, systems and features that are considered ‘green’ or sustainable. Additionally, since 2012, there has been significant research into the fire performance of a wide range of ‘green’ attributes of buildings, and numerous changes and/or additions to regulations, standards and guidance around managing and mitigating associated fire hazards and risks. Further, new ‘green’ attributes continue to be developed and implemented, which could present fire hazards or risks if unmitigated.
In response to the major advances that have taken place since 2012, research was conducted to assess the changes which have occurred. The resulting report [2] presents a comprehensive review of how the landscape of fire safety challenges of ‘green’ attributes of buildings has developed since 2012. The report reflects a global information search of more than 400 sources covering: fire events involving ‘green’ and/or sustainable building materials, systems and features; emerging ‘green’ building materials, systems and features; and research, regulatory changes, engineering approaches, risk mitigation strategies, and firefighting tactics associated with fire challenges with ‘green’ and/or sustainable building materials, systems and features. While the research is comprehensive is scope, it is not exhaustive in detail, given the extent of advancement in these areas which has occurred since 2012. The report notes that while significant advancements have been made, gaps remain, and presents several recommendations for additional research and development. These recommendations are summarized below.
Recommendations for Additional Research and Development
- Integration of ‘green’ (sustainable) attributes of buildings into fire incident reporting systems. While more fire incident data are available than was identified in 2012, there remains significant gaps in reporting on fire ignitions and contributions of ‘green’ building materials, systems and technologies, and how sustainable planning and building features may have impacted the severity of a fire or the response of the fire service. While some major events such as the Grenfell Tower fire capture attention for some time, it may be that there are hundreds of fires involving sustainable building materials, systems (technologies) and features that are not identified, and therefore not available to inform mitigation options.
- More robust and appropriate test methods, which yield engineering data, for assessment of material, component and systems performance. Closely related to the above, while some progress has been made on better understanding fire performance of ‘green’ attributes of buildings, some of the current standardized testing may not capture the fire safety hazards and risks of the materials, systems and technologies in use (i.e. real life scenarios) well enough. Furthermore, the outcomes of the tests are not always conducive to engineering analysis through computational methods; and given the cost of mid- and full-scale testing, relevant data for the extrapolation or interpolation of results using engineering methods, are not developed. The fire performance of complex façade systems is but one example. Data for engineering analysis is needed for all components, and the means to assess real-scale system performance is required.
- Integration of fire performance considerations into sustainable materials, technologies and features research and development. As emerging technologies such as carbon capture systems, new structural materials, BIPV and more are developed, fire safety needs to be at the front end of the design process, and not an afterthought. Consider what happens as building integrated photovoltaics system (BIPV) technology becomes fulling integrated into façade systems, providing a potential source of ignition that is continuously available. In product design, like building design, the cost to mitigate at the end is much higher than at the outset. This will require a change in thinking within the product and building design communities, although this can build on a tradition of product design for the environment adopted in consumer products previously.
- Robust risk and performance assessment methods and tools, which are founded on broad expert stakeholder knowledge and experience, available data, and expert judgment where data are lacking. One could argue that by definition emerging technologies will have many unknowns. While testing, such as component level fire testing, can provide insight into part of the scenario, it may be insufficient to understand the overall fire performance. Risk-informed performance-based methods are needed to provide insight into the range of possible realizations of complex systems designs, and to inform mitigation strategies to control the risks to tolerable levels. Without all of the physical or statistical data needed to make judgements with very small bands of uncertainty, expert judgment, broad stakeholder deliberations, and use of available data will be needed. Methodologies that appropriately integrate these components will be essential.
- Better tools for holistic design and performance assessment, taking advantage of BIM and other technologies that are defining the future of the construction market. Fire safety design is not, and should not, be an isolated practice. Rather, it is part of a holistic design of a building. Better analysis and design tools for support of multi-dimensional performance assessment will be needed, and more use of technologies such as BIM, which are already widely used in the design practice, will be needed. As the industry moves to modular, or prefabricated prefinished volumetric construction, analysis and design decisions will be made ‘in the shop’ prior to manufacturing of components for shipment to the site and assembled into a finished building. Not only will the design technologies be essential, but also the means to assure the assembled building has addressed key issues, such as fire protection of connections, fire protection of void spaces, and the like. If such a building has issues that need to be ‘fixed’ after construction, the costs could be significant.
- Transition to more holistic, socio-technical systems approaches for building regulatory systems, which consider the diversity of societal and market objectives for building design, construction and lifetime operation. The current building regulatory system remains largely structured following the ‘regulation by event’ approach that has been used for the past 100 years. Regulatory development is undertaken largely by disparate experts working in individual silos with the hopes that the outcome is a horse and not a camel. There are numerous societal and market objectives for building design and construction, and there should be requirements for lifetime performance in operation, across a wide spectrum of aspects, including sustainability and fire resiliency. Investigations into fires such as the Grenfell Tower point in some ways to how fortunate we are that catastrophic fire remains a relatively rare event. Evolving the building regulatory system to a more socio-technical systems approach can help better identify and address the diversity of objectives a building is expected to achieve throughout its lifetime. This includes all aspects of the regulatory system, including regulations, standards, compliance, etc.
- Further development and articulation of the SAFR building concepts and its societal and economic benefits. The concept of Sustainable And Fire Resilient (SAFR) structures has been proposed as a way to better integrate sustainability and fire safety performance objectives in building design and performance. A ‘green’ building is not so ‘green’ if it burns down and needs to be reconstructed. A fire sprinkler system is not just a life safety system, but is a means to minimize the environmental impact should a fire occur. Steps need to be taken to develop concepts that deliver on both objectives in a holistic manner.
Additional details are available in the full 150-page report, Fire Safety Challenges of ‘Green’ Buildings and Attributes, which can be downloaded for free from the Fire Protection Research Foundation (FPRF) website [2].
Acknowledgments
This work was funded by the Fire Protection Research Foundation (FPRF) and its Property Insurance Research Group (PIRG). The authors sincerely thank the FPRF, the members of the Project Technical Panel (PTP), the PIRG, and FPRF and NFPA staff for their input and guidance on this project.
The material in this article is reproduced with permission from Fire Protection Research Foundation Report, Fire Safety Challenges of ‘Green’ Buildings and Attributes, Copyright© 2020, Fire Protection Research Foundation, Quincy, MA. All rights reserved.
References
[1] Meacham, B., Poole, B., Echeverria, J. & Cheng, R. 2012. Fire Safety Challenges of Green Buildings. Final Report. The Fire Protection Research Foundation. Quincy, MA. (Available at: https://www.nfpa.org/News-and-Research/Data-research-and-tools/Building-and-Life-Safety/Fire-Safety-Challenges-of-Green-Buildings.)
[2] Meacham, B.J. and McNamee, M., 2020, Fire Safety Challenges of ‘Green’ Buildings and Attributes, Fire Protection Research Foundation, Quincy, MA. (Available at: https://www.nfpa.org/~/media/Files/News%20and%20Research/Fire%20statistics%20and%20reports/Building%20and%20life%20safety/RFGreenBuildings2020.pdf.)