I asked Dale Denda to comment on the recent garage fire in Manhattan. He has studied fires in garages for a number of years and has concluded that properly built garages don’t need fire suppression equipment. Here are his comments:
Old converted warehouses are sometimes found to be used as parking garages whether they should be or not is another question.
To answer one way or another, we have to understand a little of about the operational profile and nature of systems in the structure. This is apparently a garage that dates from the 1950’s which has no vehicle access ramps to the 5 elevated levels of parking. Therefore, it was accessed by conventional lift elevators. Based on incomplete information, the area of origin is the elevator room/shaft.
The bottom line is that structure has a very unusual combustible load, based on the intensity of the initial event and the fact that it was still smoldering as of 10AM today These conditions will probably be found to be rather unsafe or in other words, this event will be ‘one for the books.’ Fortunately, one would be hard pressed to find a similar witches brew in modern-era garages.
That about says it all.
