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Heating pipe too close to wooden beams sets Brighton building on fire

Heating pipe blamed for Brighton fire

The offending pipe. Photo by BFD.

The Boston Fire Department reports firefighters responded at 10:56 a.m. to 222 Foster St., a four-unit building called Parma Gardens.

Before the fire was declared knocked down about a half hour later, the fire went to two alarms.

The fire, which traveled along the heating pipe from the basement to the second floor, did an estimated $200,000 in damage, the department reports.

battling a blaze that is now at two alarms. John Duffill reports the fire started in the basement and extended upward through the walls.

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Comments

Looks like someone was trying to braze something , bronze drippings there.

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Steam heating pipes don't get hot enough to ignite wood. I think the more likely story is that something else started the fire, and because the opening around the pipe was not sealed, it merely allowed the fire to travel up to the floors above.

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If the pipe were conducting heat from a malfunctioning furnace in addition to steam (as in "glowing red" for some reason) it could happen.

Otherwise, I was trying to figure out the same thing - steam pipes get hot enough to burn you pretty good, but that's still well below ignition temperature for that wood. I wonder if what Kvn was saying about brazing materials is a clue to the fire's origin?

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Actual combustion of wood starts around 450F.

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To get steam at 450F, you would need to be in excess of 400psi.

I know that my residential steam boiler segments would fail at a considerably lower pressure, but, hopefully, a relief valve would trigger first.

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/saturated-steam-properties-d_273.html

UPDATE: Here's on of the few other articles I can find which describe what BFD is describing ... apparently it is a long-term process of changes in the wood that make it more flammable.

http://www.westportnow.com/index.php?/v2_5/comments/westport_inn_at_long...

Preliminary investigation of the predawn blaze found that the likely cause was a hot steam pipe adjacent to a floor joist in the basement, McCarthy said.

Known as pyrolysis, this involves a longtime buildup of heat that causes charring or decomposition of surrounding material.

“It’s unusual but not uncommon in older buildings,” McCarthy said. “It essentially means constant, low-grade heating that over a period of time eventually leads to a fire.”

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Norm?

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Try this treatise on the subject.

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Swirly,

After writing and posting my reply, I saw your post. The author of the article we reference is a personal acquaintance. He does present a scientifically sound argument in this matter.

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agrees with this theory,

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If you look at the right elbow, you can see the flame line, right above the plaster. It's not brass drippings.

From the NFPA: "insufficiently aired before grinding; and 4) carbonizing of wood at too low a temperature, leaving the charcoal in a chemically unstable condition. "

They're talking about charcoal production, but it's the same thing. Charred wood will ignite at a much lower temp than clean wood.

It's not usual, but it can happen. 600 *F fiberglass insulation jackets are usually used to cover steam pipes.

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I found that same writeup and I now feel a lot less safe in the world. Thanks, Internet.

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The pyrolysis process converts the virgin wood material to char (solid) and volatiles (gases). In a "typical" ignition scenario, the volatiles (which may be flammable) can be ignited by an external source leading to a fire. It can also happen that char may react with available oxygen and proceed to smolder, eventually leading to a fire. Relatively high temperatures are involved in both of these scenarios, as alluded to in other posts. Given the presumably low temperatures of the event in question, other physical phenomena need to be considered, self heating in particular. Some have termed such fires as being due to pyrophoric carbon, although the term is misused in this context. Self-heating fires occur over very long time scales (e.g., years).

http://www.doctorfire.com/low_temp_wood1.pdf

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Cannot really believe a heating pipe set this fire. Pretty much every wooden structure in Boston would have the same fate if this was remotely true.

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BFD investigators are as good as any, and they know that there is no shame in calling a cause "undetermined". Studies support the idea that this type of ignition can be caused by long-term intermittent heating of wood members to temperatures as low as 77C or 150F.

If steam passed through those pipes for a long enough period of time then the pipes would have been hotter than 100C or 212F because that's the lowest temperature that steam exists at.

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Cause was a heating pipe lying up against wood beams over long period of time- probably years.

What I don't know about heating pipes is, well, everything, but does that change the thinking at all?

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Although it may seem unlikely to one without knowledge o0f fire behavior, we in the fire service are very familar with a process called pyrolysis sometimes referred to as pyrolitic charring.

This article defines pyrolysis - the chemical change that occurs in wood and other materials, lowering the material combustion point in response to repeated heating at even relatively low temperatures such as around 200F.
An understanding of the meaning and process of pyrolysis forms the basis of standards & requirements for clearances from combustibles, such as the required distances between a flue vent connector or chimney or woodstove and nearby wood framing or other potentially flammable materials. In our page top photo our inspection client is pointing to inadequate clearance between a flue vent connector and wood framing.

http://inspectapedia.com/chimneys/Pyrolysis_Definition.php

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...That is slang for blowtorch my friends. They will set a building on fire. Only a Soviet reactor has steam pipes hot enough to "glow red". Happy New Year!

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Perhaps an oil fired steam system runs dry of water and the auto shut off is dead and
it heats to reactor temps....? Soviet reactor temps that is...

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If you rub two wood sticks together real fast for a long time they will catch on fire. Carry on.

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