|
Furniture = Fire Load
Remember when you were a scout, or when ever you were
taught to build a campfire? You teacher said that by making a tee-pee of
small sticks, it would light faster. You needed lots of surface area to
put heat on (and get oxygen to) to get the fire to light..
Now look at most new houses under construction, you
can plainly see the similarities. A house in the framing stage adds the
additional accelerant of a roof to keep the heat in while the fire builds.
Now you move in your furniture, draperies and linen
, you have just added the final ingredient for a potential tragedy, the
Fire Load.
Your typical house has sheetrock walls
and ceiling (won't
burn). It may have a wood floor, but fire burns up, not down. So what's to
burn in your house? The Furniture and accessories, that's what! If the
contents burns long enough, the house will probably catch fire, but
initially, it's the contents (fire load) that
burns.
You should have insurance to help replace MOST
of the things you could lose in a fire, but what about those things that
are not replaceable or have a great sentimental value? A human life, or
even the life of a pet! Wedding pictures, baby pictures, family heirlooms
and other items that monetary reimbursement won't cover?
Now, our products, properly applied, CAN and
WILL prevent a fire from ever getting started. Remember, a fire that
never starts, is the easiest to control. Should it get started, our
products will slow it down, giving you more time to escape and more time
for firefighters to fight it.
Upholstered furniture is still the “leading burnable
product first involved in fatal fires in the US” according to the US
National Fire Protection Association.
Fire in upholstered furniture (18.2% of all home
fire deaths for the 1993-97 time frame) the biggest single cause of deaths
in the US, ahead of bedding and mattresses (counted together) with 15.3%.
During that time frame, fires originating in upholstered furniture caused
658 civilian deaths in home fires.
Upholstered furniture contributes to fire
deaths not only when it is the actual source of the fire, but it also
contributes when it provides fuel for the fire that started elsewhere.
Obviously, the upholstered furniture is the largest 'fire load' in living
rooms, where about 30% of deaths occur due to fire.
How many lives would be saved by making the
fire load, not a fire
load? (treat with FlameTard to make it so!)
The NFPA estimates
434 per year due to cigarettes in furniture
97 by making furniture resistant to small open
flames
Over 1500 by slowing down the spread to allow for
escape
The statistics above are summarized from an
article in the NFPA Journal. in 2001. Go to
www.nfpa.org to find and read the entire article.
|
Reseller.
