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Fire

Fire risk reduction

News and Updates

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Tested in the Flames

December 21, 2018

FIRES START WITH SIMPLE INGREDIENTS—fuel, oxygen, and a spark—but combustion scientists still struggle to understand the complex ways those ingredients interact...

A rectangular-shaped model of a thatched roof is attacked by embers emitted from the pipe-shaped mouth of the NIST Dragon device.

A Fire-Breathing Dragon Helps Fight Ember Attacks on Thatched-Roof Buildings

December 17, 2018

Visitors to the historic mountain villages in central Japan marvel at the elegance of the steep thatched-roof farmhouses found there. Known as “gassho-zukuri,”...

Rescuing Our History from the Ashes

October 26, 2018

What strikes terror in the hearts of museum curators everywhere? Budget cuts, surely. But worse yet, the prospect of precious, irreplaceable relics being...

Lecture Presented at the 2018 European Symposium on Fire Science

September 28, 2018

Dr. Isaac Leventon recently returned from Nancy, France, where he attended the 2018 European Symposium on Fire Safety Science (ESFSS 2018) to deliver a lecture...

Flammability Reduction Group Welcomes Dr. Andre Thompson

September 3, 2018

Welcome Dr. Andre Thompson! Andre recently joined the Flammability Reduction Group in the Engineering Laboratory at NIST as an NRC post-doc. Over the next 2...

Full-Scale Furniture Fire Experiments

June 29, 2018

The Flammability Reduction Group recently completed a two-week-long series of full-scale furniture fire experiments in the National Fire Research Laboratory...

Highlights from the 29th Annual Conference on Recent Advances in Flame Retardancy of Polymeric Materials

May 24, 2018

Four members of the NIST Flammability Reduction group traveled to Stamford, Connecticut for the 29 th Annual Conference on Recent Advances in Flame Retardancy...

Two firefighters look over the last flames inside a compartment where the flammability of cross-laminated timber buildings is being tested.

New NIST Roadmap Charts Path to Reduced Fire Hazards from Materials

May 21, 2018

Fire researchers will tell you that there’s a simple solution for reducing fire hazards: eliminate flammable materials. If it doesn’t burn, the experts say...

Astronaut aboard the International Space Station is seen preparing a carousel holding samples of materials for a smoke detection test.

NIST/NASA Study Shows One Detector Doesn’t ‘Fit All’ for Smoke in Spacecraft

May 1, 2018

What had been a peaceful and productive mission for the six men aboard the Russian space station Mir, including U.S. astronaut Jerry Linenger, nearly became a...

NIST Flammability Reduction Group Commissioned a Second Cone Calorimeter for Use in its Cone Calorimetry Lab

April 17, 2018

The NIST Flammability Reduction group recently commissioned a second cone calorimeter for use in its cone calorimetry lab. Originally developed in 1982 by...

2018 Eastern States Section of the Combustion Institute Technical Meeting (ESSCI 2018)

March 4, 2018

The NIST Flammability Reduction group traveled to State College (Pennsylvania State University) for the 2018 Eastern States Section of the Combustion Institute...

Three people looking at drawing of Fire Escape Plan

NIST Study Suggests Frailty Makes Elderly More Likely to Die in Home Fires

August 22, 2017

A new study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows scientifically for the first time that an individual’s ability to respond quickly...

NIST Modeling Study Reveals the Lethal Dynamics of a San Francisco House Fire

January 30, 2015

A new computer-based fire-dynamics study by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has helped to clarify the circumstances and...

A wooded area aflame during the 2007 Witch Creek/Guejito wildfire in Southern California.

Knowing Exposure Risks Important to Saving Structures from Wildfires

September 3, 2013

A recent study of one of California's most devastating wildland fires by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the U.S. Forest Service...

A member of a joint NIST-Texas Forest Service study team collects data on a Amarillo, Texas, building damaged by wildfires in February 2011.

North Texas Wildfires Spark Historic Federal-State Collaborative Study

August 2, 2011

Two wildland-urban interface (WUI) fires* earlier this year outside of Amarillo, Texas, destroyed 70 homes, burned more than 25,000 acres of land, and caused...

NIST Offering Free Access to Standards for First Responders

April 26, 2011

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Office of Law Enforcement Standards (OLES), in collaboration with the NIST National Center for...

NIST researcher photographing the remains of the Sofa Super Store in Charleston, S.C., on June 19, 2007, the day after the fire that killed nine firefighters.

NIST Releases Final Report on Charleston Sofa Store Fire

March 15, 2011

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released its final report on its study of the June 18, 2007, fire at the Sofa Super Store in...

NIST Urges Implementation of Recommendations from World Trade Center Investigation Final Towers Report Released Today at Congressional Hearing

October 26, 2005

WASHINGTON, D.C.— William Jeffrey, director of the U.S. Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), today called on the...

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