On 25/09/18 23:27, juan wrote:
On Tue, 25 Sep 2018 08:19:15 +0100 Peter Fairbrother <peter@tsto.co.uk> wrote:
Cases, especially from Russia and China, were excluded because data was lacking or censored.
China's Netizens Ridicule CCTV Fire - so much for censorship.
I guess the Chinese authorities found it hard to deny that the fire existed. They did try to censor it. But reticence and censorship may well play a part in the lack of easily-available data about the fire. What I couldn't find is details like the result of the fire, time uncontrolled inside the building, and the extent of the fire. But I didn't look very hard, or for very long. I looked at about 110 fires, picked out those I thought were structurally significant, then looked for data on materials of construction. In about 8 cases where I couldn't find any data on the extent of the fire I excluded it. In about 10 cases where data was scant I either excluded or included the fire based on partial data and guesswork. Some of the materials listed, especially for the smaller buildings, are the result of a quick look at a photo and "that's obviously rc", rather than written sources. And many of the sources were second or third or fifth hand, but I just used the first one I came on which had the data I was looking for in it. And all in about 4 hours. So don't expect too much.
Now this does look like a fucking "major conflagration" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hSPFL2Zlpg
No. It certainly doesn't look structurally significant. "By structurally significant I mean where by my estimation there was significant insult to the structural parts of the building from fire - roughly, a large fire over much of the area of several floors, which lasted uncontrolled for an hour or more, and eg where the fire wasn't mostly on the outside of the building." It looks spectacular, but if that was the worst of it I'd take it off my list of structurally significant fires. What is shown there is a fire in outer parts of one or two lower floors on one side, fire in parts of one corner of the building - not large parts, the building is huuuge - and a whole lot of fire on the outside of the building, in the bamboo scaffolding. By far the most spectacular part was the when the bamboo scaffolding caught fire, not the building itself. Engulfed in flames, yes. Structurally significant, no. BTW the explosions are bamboo scaffolding - the air in the closed bamboo segments gets hot and expands, then the bamboo gives way explosively. I wasn't sure that the Beijing TV fire counts - afaict most of the fire is outside where it doesn't insult the structure. But I included it anyway, on my best guess. As I said, the list wasn't meant to be authoritative, inclusive or exclusive: merely indicative. The nearby Mandarin Oriental hotel which was set on fire by the Beijing TV station may have been worthy of inclusion too, or perhaps instead of - some of the "Beijing TV fire" videos are actually of the nearby hotel, not Beijing TV - but I couldn't be bothered sorting it out. ps the Beijing TV building was under construction, so there wouldn't have been carpets, furnishings, office equipment, standby generator fuel etc to feed the fire. That would have helped it survive. I was going to exclude fires were the building was under construction - they are surprisingly common -but decided not to. -- Peter Fairbrother