- Hardcover: 192 pages
- Publisher: Channel 4 Books; First Ediition edition (21 May 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0752217399
- ISBN-13: 978-0752217390
- Product Dimensions: 23.8 x 15.4 x 2.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,735,641 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Fires start, or are started, and the evidence of how it happened, and how it spread, is likely to burn with the rest of the building. Yet if fires are to be prevented and if arsonists are to be caught, techniques have to be found to sift through the ashes for that evidence. Nicholas Faith's book, based on the Channel Four series, takes us through those techniques and introduces us to the forensic experts who apply them. We learn how computer modelling has made it possible to understand the apparent paradoxes of fire--why sudden flares will trap and kill one person and not the person in the next room. There is a folk myth that people panic and trample each other-- Faith explains the extent to which this is mere mythology and how well most people have behaved in the direst of emergencies. He takes us in detail through some of the fires of modern times--Kings Cross, Our Lady of Angels--and the lessons learned from them. And we learn about the people who take the most terrible of risks to save others from fire as well as the awful drives which lead some people, including renegade fire fighters, to kill people in this most awful of ways. --Roz Kaveney
Product Description
This volume is not just the story of some of the most dreadful fires of modern times, it also follows the story once the fire has been put out - the work of investigators who piece together the cause of the ignition, the mechanism by which the fire spread, and even the occupant's behaviour. Their work leads to discoveries that form the basis of legislation, making buildings safer places. The text features fire-fighters, fire-service investigators, fire-safety engineers and forensic fire-scientists.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book, goes through the reconstruction of the Kings Cross fire, MGM Grand fire in Las Vegas and many more. All are approached in a very readable way for the scientist and non scientist a like. As an introduction to fire investigation I thought this book was excellent. So much so that I am now looking to buy the other three in the investigation series.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I found this book entertaining and compelling reading. The case studies gave an overview of the type of work a fire investigator does and the overiding need for all in the "business" to keep an open mind. Whilst this overview is good, this is not a book for guidance on practical investigation.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
7 reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Good Information: Diagrams Sorely Needed
22 May 2006
Format:Hardcover
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.
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.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
A suprisingly good read
14 Aug 2000
Format:Hardcover
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.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Pretty good, with minor editing and proofreading errors
13 Dec 2000
Format:Hardcover
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.
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