If you have comments or questions about any of the fire safety information presented here, don’t hesitate to contact us.
Basic construction methods
Frame
Masonry
- Solid brick masonry
- Block masonry
- Solid brick masonry versus masonry brick veneer
Floor construction methods used today
Solid wood joists or legacy system
- Solid wood joists
VIDEO (01:40)
- NIST Engineer Dan Madrzykowski and Deputy Chief Billy Goldfeder evaluate solid wood construction following a burn simulation.
Lightweight engineered joists or engineered system
- Wood I-joists
- Wood truss (wooden chords and webbing, steel gusset plates)
- Wood and steel truss (wooden chords and steel webbing)
- VIDEO (02:13) - NIST Engineer Dan Madrzykowski reviews a burn simulation setup. Deputy Chief Billy Goldfeder and host Jonathan Freed join Dan to review post-burn results.
- VIDEO (01:47) - Deputy Chief Billy Goldfeder and Fire Chief Emeritus Crawford Wiestling look at open web joist construction.
- National Fallen Firefighters Foundation Training Outline – This presentation reviews the importance of knowing building construction.
- Underwriters Laboratories Training Outline – Structural Stability of Engineered Lumber in Fire Conditions is an online firefighter training course designed to demonstrate, through burn simulations, the importance of educating firefighters on the characteristics of fire development in homes of today versus homes built and furnished in years past
Residential Floor System Facts
Pre-planning assessments
- Size of homes with exit locations
- Type of construction and materials used
- New construction review with developers
- VIDEO (03:11) - Deputy Chief Billy Goldfeder and Fire Chief Emeritus Crawford Wiestling join State Farm host Jonathan Freed to evaluate new construction methods.
- Pre-planning tools
