It is very important to protect buildings against fire. Especially older wooden buildings and areas with a historically important heritage, i.e. areas that cannot be restored to their original condition upon loss. In Eskilstuna one such area is located - Rademachersmedjorna. On behalf of Eskilstuna Kommunfastigheter AB a documentation of Rademachersmedjorna’s constructional fire protection has been conducted in this report in order to have the area's fire protection level documented. The purpose of this study has been, via systematic field studies, to provide an overview of Rademachersmedjorna and document the area’s current fire protection level. Based on this information, a visualization of the area's constructional fire protection and risk zones has been developed to give a simple overview for users, managers and owners. The inventory can be used by Eskilstuna Kommunfastigheter AB for a quick and easy visualization of Rademachersmedjorna’s fire protection level and risk zones. Furthermore, this information could be used as a basis for planning future safety prevention efforts. The documentation over the area is based on the assessment method Bedömning av brandskydd i kulturbebyggelse (hereafter referred to as BSV-k) and the parts this method includes. There are a total of 16 buildings at the Rademacher area and only one building achieved an acceptable fire protection level according to BSV-k. There are several zones in the area that pose a higher risk for the occurrence of fire and fire spread. These higher vulnerable fire hazard zones are spread out over Rademachersmedjorna which means that the whole area quickly can get involved in case of fire. In this context it is important to avoid fire what so ever may arise. Removing combustible material in escape routes, in attics and combustible materials nearby the buildings are some fire prevention measures which can be applied. It is also important to note objects such as bins and wooden planks that exist between the buildings being potential fire carriers. In cases where the buildings distance to a nearby located building is very short, the potential fire carriers pose little threat as the fire can spread directly from building to building. To achieve an acceptable level of fire protection for Rademachersmedjorna - according to this study's assessment method - is sufficient in many cases to apply fire prevention.

Fire in building structures represents a risk both to life and property that cannot be fully eliminated. It is the aim of fire safety engineering to reduce this risk to an acceptable level through the application of scientific and engineering principles to evaluate the risk posed by fire and to determine the optimal set of protective measures. This is increasingly being achieved through performance-based design methods. Performance-based design sets out performance requirements, typically related to life safety and control of property losses, and the designer is free to choose the most suitable approach to meet these requirements. Accurate performance-based design requires the evaluation of the risks to a structure through the evaluation of the range of hazards that may occur and the resulting structural responses. The purpose of this research is to develop simplified methodologies for the reliability based design of steel framed structures in fire. These methodologies are incorporated into a software package, FireLab, which is intended to act as a tool for practicing engineers to aid in learning and applying performance-based design. FireLab is a Matlab based program that incorporates a number of different models for analysing the response of structural elements exposed to fire. It includes both deterministic and probabilistic analysis procedures. A range of simple fire models are presented for modelling compartment fires. A set of heat transfer processes are discussed for calculating the temperature distribution within common structural elements exposed to fire. A variety of structural models are discussed which may be used to model the effects of fire on a structure. An analytical model for the analysis of composite beams has been implemented in the software program. Interfaces between the software and 2 separate third party programs have also been created to allow for the analysis of composite beams using the finite element method. Analytical methods for the analysis of composite slabs under thermo-mechanical load have been implemented in the software. These methods account for the additional load carrying capacity that slabs have in fire due to the positive effects of tensile membrane action. A numerical analysis method for the vertical stability of structures subjected to multi-floor fires has been implemented using the direct stiffness method. This method uses an elastic 2nd order solution in order to check the stability of a column under the fire induced horizontal loads from sagging floors. These models of potential failure scenarios provide the basis for the probabilistic analysis methods. A variety of methods for reliability analysis are evaluated based on ease of use, accuracy and efficiency. A selection of these methods has been implemented in the software program. A selection of sample cases are examined in order to illustrate the procedures and to evaluate the important input variables. These methods provide the probability of failure of a structure under specific loads. The probability of failure is a useful parameter in comparing the level of safety between various design options. A more comprehensive framework is developed for the evaluation of the probable costs due to fire associated with a given design. This framework is based on an existing framework from earthquake engineering. It involves calculating the statistical spread of both the magnitude and likelihood of occurrence of fire and the resulting structural responses. The damage that occurs from the structural response may be then estimated. Finally, given the likely level of damage that will occur it is possible to estimate the cost of the damage either in terms of monetary cost of repair or downtime due to repair works. This method is applied to a variety of design options for a typical office building in order to illustrate the application of the framework.

Peatlands are multiservice ecosystems: they are the largest terrestrial store of carbon in the UK, unique habitats which provide a home for internationally important species and managed for forestry, farming and game management and shooting. This makes understanding the impact of management practices on their ecology important if they are to be sustainably managed for multi-benefits. Fire has long been used to manage peatlands in the UK to improve grazing and habitat provision for livestock and game. The effect of fire on carbon cycling in blanket bogs is of increasing concern as greenhouse gas emissions from land use is now an important management as well as political issue. Gaps however, still exist in our understanding of the controls on greenhouse emissions from blanket bogs and the impact fire may have on them both directly and indirectly by modifying vegetation composition and environmental conditions. The main objective of this research was to assess the effect of fire on greenhouse gas emissions by measuring methane and ecosystem respiration after burning at blanket bog sites across Scotland for a period of up to 3 years and relating changes in fluxes with changes in vegetation composition and abiotic conditions. In addition, the response of the Sphagnum layer to burning was assessed by looking at the recovery of Sphagnum capillifolium in the field and in a novel laboratory experiment. The indirect effects of fire on methane emissions were further investigated by a laboratory experiment devised to test if high temperatures would be fatal to methanotrophic bacteria in the Sphagnum layer, reducing methanotrophy, and thus a mechanism for fire to increase methane emissions in the short term. The results showed that methane emissions and ecosystem respiration were not significantly different in burnt plots when compared to adjacent unburnt plots at each of the three sites studies. Methane emissions were only weakly correlated to the position of the water table and neither methane fluxes or ecosystem respiration correlated with measures of vegetation composition and above ground biomass. Methanotrophy in Sphagnum was found to be difficult to detect, with a high temperature treatment having no significant effect on rates of methane oxidation. S. capillifolium was found to respond to fire by growing new auxiliary stems if the capitulum was consumed or irreversible damaged physiologically by temperatures experienced at the moss surface, with surface temperatures around 400oC with a temperature residency time of 30 seconds on artificially dried samples the most damaging, but not lethal, treatment. These results suggest that low severity fires which only consume the canopy vegetation, not penetrating the peat and leaving the moss layer mostly intact, do not have significant effects on methane emissions and ecosystem respiration in the short and medium term. In addition, it suggests that S.capillifolium can, under certain circumstances, survive a fire with the characteristics of those studied here. These findings reiterate that best practice burning guidelines must continue to ensure that burning is only carried out on blanket bog when conditions are conducive to fires with the characteristics studied here, which had little effect on important components of the carbon cycle and are survivable by at least one of the most common species of Sphagnum.

Examination of the literature reveals a paucity of dedicated research into collisions and groundings involving UK fishing vessels. The aim of this research was to provide answers to fundamental questions regarding the factors that contribute to fishing vessel traffic losses. Data for this study were gathered from a broad range of sources and an eclectic range of techniques employed in their analysis. The recent development of the UK fishing fleet and the pattern of losses from all causes is investigated for the period 1975 to 1994. Fishing vessel collision and grounding losses are then set in relative perspective by comparison with those arising from other causes. Aspects of the macro-environment in which the UK fishing fleet has operated since 1975 are examined and the results interpreted in the form of a comparative regional analysis. The micro-environment prevailing in the fishing fleet is exemplified through combining an array of observations made at sea on board working fishing vessels with questionnaire responses drawn from representative samples of British fishermen in 22 fishing ports around the country. A previously unattempted composite analysis of the circumstances of fishing vessel collision and grounding losses is presented and this allows for a number of conclusions to be drawn. A causal analysis technique is applied to fishing vessel casualties for the first time and leads to the identification of human factors as a more significant contributor to traffic losses than either technical or environmental factors. A novel programme of cross-validated observations of fishing vessel watchkeepers in their working environment was pursued, providing data on how attention is allocated, workload levels at different stages in the fishing cycle and also on the watchkeeper's cognitive state while on duty. The thesis concludes with a wide ranging discussion and recommendations based on the research that could contribute to reducing loss of life and vessels in traffic events, made with due consideration for the physical and fiscal constraints that impinge upon the UK fishing fleet.

In this paper, I will discuss the production of my thesis film, Lost In The Fire. The main subjects of this paper are Writing, Directing, Production Design, Cinematography, Editing, Sound, and Technology. I will also be talking about the ways the Graduate Film program at UNO prepared me to accomplish this project. In addition, I will share my process and reflect on the failures and successes of making this film.

Ph.D., Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, 2011 / 1 Investigating the life history strategy of an African savanna tree, Sclerocarya birrea subsp. caffra (marula) Chantal Vinisia Helm Abstract Lack of understanding of the life history attributes and responses of savanna woody plants to disturbances, as well as the observation of unstable population structures in a keystone, savanna tree, Sclerocarya birrea subsp. caffra (marula), prompted this study. This study employed a combination of empirical, experimental and model formulation techniques, aimed at achieving its ultimate purpose of understanding the life history strategy of marula in the face of disturbance. Four main population structures were identified for marula in the low altitude savannas of South Africa: 1) adult dominated, 2) juvenile dominated, 3) with a “missing size class” and 4) stable (negative J-shaped). Spatial variability in structure indicated different drivers affecting different populations. High annual mortality rates of up to 4.6% in adult trees, no recruitment out of the fire trap and little regeneration were observed in the Kruger National Park (KNP) between 2001 and 2010, and consequently even greater instability in the structure of these populations already observed earlier in the decade. Growth rates of saplings between 2 and 8 m in height and 2 and 30 cm in stem diameter in the field were monitored between 2007 and 2010. Annual growth rates of up to 11 mm in diameter and up to 22 cm in height were observed. Annual relative growth rates ranged between 1.9 and 4.8% across sites. Growth rates were positively linked with rainfall and plant size. Growth rates, biomass allocation patterns, as well as storage and defence allocation in 3 to 28 month old marula seedlings were assessed under glasshouse conditions. Relative growth rates were highest directly after germination (20%), but did not exceed 5% thereafter. Allocation to roots (already 65% of the overall biomass at 3 months of age and >80% when older) was high regardless of soil type or provenance. Provenance affected height gain, and plants germinating from seeds collected at higher rainfall sites had faster height growth rates than those from seeds collected at lower 2 rainfall sites. Allocation to storage in the form of root starch peaked at 35%, while allocation to defence in the form of phenolics in the leaves peaked at 18%, being relatively higher than other species. No trade-off between growth and defence allocation was observed. However, in the second growing season, growth at the start coincided with a 50% decrease in starch reserves in the roots. Reproductive maturity was found to occur after 46 years and escape from the fire trap after 12 years in a disturbance free environment. Marula trees appear to be able to live for up to 300 years of age. High temporal variability in fruit production was observed, marginally linked to rainfall. Only 2% of seeds persisted for more than one year, and hence marula relied mostly on the current season’s fruit crop for input of new germinants. Fruit production was highly synchronous across trees at a site. Very high levels of seed predation were observed. Marula seeds can remain dormant for at least 10 years when stored in the laboratory. Germination takes place after 3 mm of rainfall every four days for two weeks and is enhanced by acid digestion and high temperatures. Germination percentages are relatively low (<50% of the endocarps). Marula seedlings appear highly adapted to fire, with high allocation to below-ground biomass and starch storage, as well as very thick bark from very small stem diameters, including a well developed resprouting response from very young. Marula stems were able to resist fire from 3.4 cm in stem diameter, and were completely resistant above 7 cm. Stem diameter growth was prioritised above stem height growth, indicating that in marula, diameter gain is more important than height gain in escaping the fire trap. Topkilled marula saplings are able to regain their prefire height within one season. However, rainfall patterns may have an overriding effect on these growth patterns. Adult trees appear to be made vulnerable to fire through bark stripping, toppling and pollarding and the subsequent invasion of the soft wood by borers. On nutrient-poor granite soils, marula has a resistant strategy to herbivory, however on nutrient-rich basalt soils, marula overcompensates for herbivory even at very low levels. This may explain why marulas are more vulnerable on basalt soils in the KNP, having 3 already been extirpated from the northern arid basaltic plains. Marula seedlings are extremely drought resistant through fast root penetration rates and high root: shoot ratios. A simple demographic model was developed which predicted that marula populations are unlikely to survive given the current elephant impact in the KNP and if the fire interval is less than once every seven years. Even though marula is highly resilient to damage from herbivory or fire alone, the combination of frequent fire and heavy utilisation is proving fatal for marula populations in the KNP and elsewhere. In terms of other savanna tree species, marula is an outlier in its life history strategy, being extremely well adapted to the effects of fire with very thick bark, extensive resprouting ability and fast growth rates, combined with very high allocation to root mass, and levels of storage and chemical defence, as well as having very drought tolerant seedlings. Its main weakness as an adult, appears to be its soft wood, which is susceptible to wood borer attack. The perplexing lack of recruitment at some sites in spite of the extraordinary ability of marula seedlings to resprout from an early age, withstand extensive drought, have fast root penetration rates, extremely high root reserve storage and resistance to fire at small stem diameters, combined with high levels of fruit production and low water requirements for germination, is probably due to a combination of the lack of a dense persistent seed bank, high inter-annual variability in fruit production, low germination percentages, high seed and /or seedling predation rates and possibly dispersal of seeds away from suitable habitats. Overall, the unstable population structures observed in the low altitude savannas of South Africa, specifically in the KNP, do not bode well for the future persistence of marula as a dominant canopy tree species. Keywords: elephant, fire, growth, mortality, recruitment, regeneration

Cette thèse de doctorat analyse la valeur symbolique du feu dans la Divine Comédie de Dante, dans le but de produire une étude générale sur ce sujet. L’approche méthodologique qui a été retenue pour cette recherche est le commentaire de texte, bien que des analyses iconographiques l’enrichissent pour certains passages, et ce en lien permanent avec la théologie chrétienne et la riche exégèse dantesque existante. La première partie de ce travail fournit le contexte de l’objet d’étude : elle vise à établir une cartographie des différentes apparitions du feu et des flammes physiques au long du poème. Dans la seconde partie, divisée en trois chapitres correspondant aux trois cantiche de la Comédie, l’étude s’étend et tente de lister à la fois les occurrences du feu et des flammes physiques, mais aussi métaphoriques. Les principaux passages étudiés sont les chants des hérétiques, des luxurieux et d’Ulysse en Enfer, la barrière de feu au Purgatoire, et ensuite, au Paradis, la sphère de feu, Mars, la croix de Cacciaguida, la figure de l’aigle, le ciel des étoiles fixes et l’Empyrée. Enfin, la dernière partie est consacrée aux métaphores transversales liées au symbole du feu : d’abord, les manifestations de l’ardeur et des sentiments enflammés, puis le plus brûlant d’entre eux, l’amour, et le plus important du chef d’œuvre de Dante, la charité. Les images qui ont été sélectionnées sont certains des dessins de Sandro Botticelli, des peintures de William Blake et des gravures de Gustave Doré. / This doctoral thesis analyses the symbolic meaning of fire in Dante’s Divine Comedy, in order to generate a general study about this topic. The chosen methodology of this research is a textual analysis although an iconographic analysis enriches the poem’s study as well, with permanent connections to Christian theology and the rich existing Dante exegesis. The context of the study is provided in the first part, which aims to establish a mapping of the various occurrences of physical fire and flames throughout the poem. In the second part, which is divided into three chapters corresponding to the three poem’s cantiche, the study widens in its scope and attempts to list both physical and metaphorical occurrences of fire and flames. The key passages that are analysed are the heretics’, the luxurious’ and Ulysse’s verses in Inferno, the fire barrier in Purgatorio and then, in the Paradiso, the sphere of fire, Mars, the Cacciaguida cross, the eagle figure, the sky of the Fixed Stars and the Empyrean. Finally, the third and final part aims to identify some crosscutting metaphors related to the fire symbol: first, the expression of ardour and ignited feelings, followed by love, which is the most inflamed of them, and charity, the most significant for Dante in his masterpiece. Images that have been chosen are drawings from Sandro Botticelli, William Blake’s paintings and Gustave Doré’s engravings.

Thesis advisor: Marilynn Johnson / Notorious for bursting into flames, twentieth century Chelsea was a “city under fire.” Cast into the crossfire of industrialization and demographic flux, Chelsea suffered as people, industry, and financial assistance migrated in and out of the small city. Chelsea’s unique spectrum of urban problems, however, only explains the trials and tribulations leading up to the Great Fires of 1908 and 1973 and not the events created by them. In Chelsea, escalating urban crisis occurred simultaneously with rapidly growing immigrant populations. In the years before the fire of 1908, Jewish immigration pushed Chelsea to the brink of demographic succession; likewise, in the handful of years before the fire of 1973, Latino migrations forced Chelsea to recognize the changing dynamic of a once-homogeneous city. As isolated events, the Great Fire of 1908 and the Great Fire of 1973 were urban disasters, but as decisive moments in the local history of Jewish and Latino immigrants, the fires were nodal points in the interplay between urban-industrial life, urban crisis and immigration. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: History Honors Program. / Discipline: History.

Building fire safety is significantly influenced by building and fire safety regulations (often codes and standards). These regulations specify what fire safety measures should be included in a given building as a minimum requirement. Since fire engineers develop fire safety designs based on the regulations, they are often viewed as the primary agents in ensuring the fire safety of buildings. However, their mission often starts with given building design features, such as interior spatial layout, exterior shape, site plan, and so forth, which are mostly determined by architects (or architects). Although architects design buildings within the boundaries of the regulatory requirements, their focus is not generally on fire safety, but more on visual and spatial aesthetics of buildings. These objectives are linked to building form and functionality, which are not subject to the building and fire safety regulations. These objectives can sometimes compete with fire safety objectives in such a way that buildings can be unsafe in certain situations due to unintended effects of building design features on actual fire safety performance. To determine whether a building has design features which work against fire safety performance, evaluation of building fire safety performance must take into account the effects of building design features. If fire safety performance is significantly decreased by building design attributes, additional fire safety measures or modifications of the building design should be incorporated to provide an appropriate level of fire safety performance. While there have been various building fire safety evaluation tools developed over the last forty or so years, none of them comprehensively considers building design features and their associated effects as key performance parameters. In this context, the current study develops conceptual models for fire safety performance assessment in both qualitative and quantitative manners. After scrutinizing previous fire incidents and the building features which contributed to their outcomes, various fire safety performance attributes, including building design features, are identified and cause-effect relationships among the attributes are established. Then, the attributes are organized hierarchically like a tree diagram such that the performance of one upper level attribute is determined by the combined performance of multiple lower level attributes. In this way, the performance of bottom level attributes propagates upward to the upper level attributes. Two tree diagrams are established for the most common fire safety objectives, life safety and property protection. Each attribute in the tree diagrams has two quantified values: performance value and weighting factor. The current study uses three different performance values (0.01, 0.5, and 1) for bottom level attributes representing poor, average and good performance, respectively. In addition, as each attribute can have different contribution to upper level attributes, a weighting factor between 0 and 1 is assigned to each attribute which represent the relative importance. With these two values, the performance value of an upper level attribute is calculated using the weighted sum method (summation of multiplied values of performance value and weighting factor) which is commonly used in the Analytical Hierarchy Process. As the performance of an attributes is a function of specific designs, building uses, occupants, and site conditions, in the first instance, judgments of the fire engineers can be used to assign weights and performance values, but they can also be determined jointly among stakeholders. Generally speaking, the details of attributes for fire safety performance are not determined at once. Rather they are gradually determined as the building design progresses. This means that in early design building design phase, many of the attributes are unknown as well as fire safety performance. Once appropriate information can be provided to architects by fire engineers at each building design phase, it is likely to avoid possible conflicts between design details and fire safety performance. Using the fire safety evaluation model, weak attributes for fire safety performance can be identified and possible make-up strategy and building design approach can be developed in advance. This provides the potential for the collaboration between fire engineers and architects and at the end for increasing building fire safety performance of buildings.

"The primary purpose of this research was to quantify fire suppression and fire intensification phenomena for water spray application to high flash point hydrocarbon oil pool fires. Test data and analyses of the phenomena include the drop size distribution and application and delivered densities of various water sprays, and spray-induced oil cooling and oil splattering for mineral seal oil and for cooking oil 30-cm diameter pool fires. Four different types of tests were conducted as described below. A Dantec Particle Dynamic, phase Doppler, Analyzer was used to measure the water drop sizes and velocities generated by 13 selected nozzles and sprinkler heads. Most measurements were made 0.91 m (3 ft) below the nozzles/sprinklers, since this was the location of the center of the hydrocarbon pool in later fire tests. The correlations for the volume-median drop diameter, dw, were of the form , where D is the nozzle orifice and is the spray Weber number based on D and the nozzle velocity. A ring burner was designed and constructed for uniformly heating oil pool surfaces from above and igniting them. The resulting oil temperatures while the oil was heated to its flash point satisfied the one-dimensional transient heat conduction model for a semi-infinitely thick solid with a shallow heated layer near the surface. Water sprays actuated when the oil surface temperature reached its flash point rapidly cooled the heated layer and caused mixing with the cooler oil below. Fire suppression tests were conducted to determine the relationship between required water spray density, drop size, and oil temperature in order to achieve suppression. A data correlation using non-dimensional parameters was developed to quantify the fire suppression criteria for the high flash point oil fires. Oil pool fires with the higher flash point oils, such as the 291oC flash point soybean oil, could be suppressed with much lower water densities than those of the lower flash point (137oC) mineral seal oil. However, if the water spray drop sizes are sufficiently small, the lower flash point oil fires can also be extinguished with lower spray densities. The NFPA 15 specified critical water density (0.30 gpm/ft2, 12 mm/min) to extinguish high flash point pool fires is only valid for mineral seal oil when the drop size is lower than about 300 µm. It is valid with larger drop sprays only when the flash point of the oil is higher than 190 according to the correlation developed here. Spray-induced pool fire intensification tests were conducted under a fire products calorimeter for measuring heat release rates. Supplemental oil vaporization rate tests were also conducted to determine the contributions of oil vaporization and oil splattering to the intensified fire. Results showed that vaporization could only account for between 1% and 1.7% of the heat release rate in intensified mineral seal oil fires, and less than 1% of the heat release rate in intensified soybean oil fires. The remainder is due to spray-induced oil splattering, which increased with increasing drop Weber number as well as increased oil temperature. The heat release rate is enhanced by factor from 2.12 to 5.55 compared to the heat release rate of free burning cooking oil. For mineral seal oil, this ratio is in the range 0.92 to 1.25 for the spray conditions tested. Correlations with the dimensionless factors of and the Weber number of the water spray were also developed to quantify the ratio of the splattered oil to applied spray density."