[GSBN] Fire case studies

[Bob Theis]

 I’ve been mentioned twice in this thread, so I feel obliged to  recap the summary of field reports of SB fires I gathered  for Bruce King’s  2006 book, Design of Straw Bale Buildings ( Each of you DOES  have a copy, right?? ) 

There were fourteen fires in the survey, and it will surprise no one on this list that the best correlation of fire to damage was whether the bales were plastered. 

 Six fires occurred after plastering;  of them, five had only local damage and one was a total loss ( in which the fire began with an electrical short in the roof framing, and the fire department felt obliged to demolish the bale walls, even though they were only smoldering )

Eight fires occurred before plastering; of them, two had local damage and six were a total loss.  

As mentioned in David Arkin’s post, the biggest fire liability to bale walls are those damn sticks of wood we put up near them. 

Bob


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