Customer Reviews

Blaze: The Forensics of Fire

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This book provides good information about fire behavior. One common theme of this book is the speed with which indoor fires spread. The rapid, sometimes nearly explosive growth of fires is a major factor in people not evacuating premises sooner. The rapid fire growth owes to the feedback effects of indoor fires. One of these effects is the flashover, a common phenomenon. Another is the "trench-hugging" effect, as exhibited by the King's Cross London subway fire. Still another is the radiative effect of a low ceiling, combined with a flammable plastic wall covering which releases burning drops onto yet-nonignited seats, as exemplified by the Stardust disco fire in Dublin, which grew from an innocuous one-seat fire to a multiple-seat, multiple-row deadly conflagration in only 2-3 minutes, and totally consuming of the interior in merely 5 minutes.

Modern interior materials, notably polyurethane, can produce vast amounts of carbon monoxide and suffocating, blinding smoke in just a minute or two. Although the author Faith does not discuss this further, the water-decomposing temperatures of HTA's help the reader understand why the magnesium-thermite incendiary bombs of WWII could not be extinguished by water. And, although the destruction of the World Trade Center on 911, of course, predates this book, the information about the One Meridian Plaza fire of 1991 helps the reader understand the former, albeit on a much smaller scale. In both cases, several floors of a high rise burned out of control, completely engulfing the floors, and could not be put out. Although the One Meridian Plaza building did not collapse, extensive cracking of rock material and the twisting of metal girders almost did cause a collapse.

A major shortcoming of this work is its lack of diagrams. It would be so much easier to follow what the author is saying about the British subway fire and the Dublin disco fire had these been provided. Hopefully, a subsequent edition of this book will rectify this situation.

I was a little worried as I began this book that it would be a boring list of fire science facts and not much else, I could hardly have been more wrong.While most readers will learn things about how a fire starts spreads and acts Mr. Faith handles these details without missing a beat or boring the reader in the slightest."Blaze" uses real life fires, such as the MGM fire in Las Vegas, the Dupont Plazza fire in San Juan Puerto Rico and the Kings Cross underground station fire in London to detail how fires start, how they spread and most suprisingly how people react to a fire that may endanger their life.The strength of this book is in the way Mr. Faith puts it all together. Most of the chapters read like a good short mystery novel, Where did the fire start? how did it start? was it arson? if so who set it? why did they set it? Faith takes you step by step through the investigation until all the answers that that can be found are found.Many chapters aslo contain high drama: daring rescues, narrow escapes and all too often tragic and unnessacary loss of life. I highly reccomend this book for all firefighters, fire invesigators, fire buffs or anyone who enjoys reading a good mystery.

It was a pretty good overview of fire investigations. I was bothered by proofreading errors.

Readers of chapter 3 (p34) strained to understand how a fire could creep along a low incline rather than flame upward. They were told this was due to the "...so-called colander effect, whereby jets stick to walls." If they were imagining some sort of sieve, they were mislead. The effect which causes fluid jets to bend around gentle curves is properly called the Coanda effect, named after a hydraulics theoretician.

A few other minor errors like a "Kray-2" supercomputer mar the account, which is otherwise good reading.

I was happy to see a chapter discounting the widespread belief that crowds of people tend to panic in fires.

I would like pictures of the scenes to help understand. But I do recommend it. It is the first of its kind I have seen.

I was a little worried as I began this book that it would be a boring list of fire science facts and not much else, I could hardly have been more wrong.While most readers will learn things about how a fire starts spreads and acts Mr. Faith handles these details without missing a beat or boring the reader in the slightest."Blaze" uses real life fires, such as the MGM fire in Las Vegas, the Dupont Plazza fire in San Juan Puerto Rico and the Kings Cross underground station fire in London to detail how fires start, how they spread and most suprisingly how people react to a fire that may endanger their life.The strength of this book is in the way Mr. Faith puts it all together. Most of the chapters read liKe a good short mystery novel, Where did the fire start? how did it start? was it arson? if so who set it? why did they set it? Faith takes you step by step through the investigation until all the answers that that can be found are found.Many chapters aslo contain high drama: daring rescues, narrow escapes and all too often tragic and unnessacary loss of life. I highly reccomend this book for all firefighters, fire invesigators, fire buffs or anyone who enjoys reading a good mystery.

Very informative book. Needed to list more details of the actual forensics of fire and how it acts.

hi my name is chris j coombes and i love to red about fire behavior fire is vere dangeris and it can hurt you .if you are a firefighter you know how fire can burn fast and you have to be on the look out for a fire. we thank that fire is safe but it,s not fire can burn evere thing you have to the ground. thank you for your help chris j coombes...