Grant to fund furniture flammability study
By Michael J. Knell -- Furniture Today, July 14, 2008
OTTAWA — An assistant professor of engineering at Carleton University here has received a grant of as much as $25,000 from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. to study the role of upholstered furniture in house fires.
Ehab Zalok is leading the project, one of several funded under the federal housing agency whose goal is to improve the quality of housing in Canada.
“Before firefighters enter a building, they need to do a burn assessment to determine safety, and a slight misjudgment can cost them their lives,” the CMHC said in a statement announcing the award. It added that firefighters examine indicators including floor space, window size and fire type.
“But what is hard to predict is the flammability of furniture,” CMHC continued, adding, “Approximately one-third of residential fire deaths are attributable to upholstered furniture.”
The housing agency didn't give any evidence to support that statement, although it noted that in his application, Zalok cited upholstered furniture's role in a fire in Montreal last year.
“Some apartment-dwellers had been away for a few days, and they had a sofa leaning against a heating element,” Zalok is quoted as saying in the statement. “There was some smoke, so the neighbors called for a fire response. When the firefighters tried to move the sofa, it caught on fire, and the whole apartment went into flashover. Two of the firefighters escaped, but one died on the scene.”
A flashover is a sudden jump in temperature that can cause everything in a room to ignite. “It's one of the more dreaded possibilities in an enclosed fire, and because of a lack of research, it is often difficult to predict,” the CMHC said.
Zalok and his team plan to develop a database from existing information on fires attributed to upholstered furniture. By using computer models, the team will study how various types of furniture could influence burn rates and events such as flashover, sprinkler activation, loss of visibility or release of toxic gases. The study is expected to take two to three years.
“Window size and floor area are easy to calculate,” Zalok said. “But it will be difficult to collect real data from manufacturers about the properties of their furniture, and characterize it in a way that will be useful to the study.”
Still, he said he is confident the project may help to save lives and raise awareness about the role of furniture in fires.
“For example, if people lean sofas against heating elements, it may take four to five years for the material to dry out and become a fire hazard,” Zalok said.
“I hope (the research) will lead to better recommendations to occupants about where they should put their smoke detectors — something that builders can pass along.
No furniture industry associations were consulted during the grant process.
Terry Clark, president of the Canadian Furniture Manufacturers Assn. and chairman of Furniture West, said the industry supports various research projects on flammability and furniture the National Research Council is conducting, the results of which are expected to be published sometime in 2009.
He questioned several of the CMHC's claims, including that one-third of residential fire deaths can be attributed to upholstered furniture. “Who did that come from?” Clark asked, adding that most upholstered furniture made by Canadian manufacturers meet or exceed the standard set by the UFAC program, which are monitored by Health Canada.
Lynda Horne, the CMHC's senior officer in charge of responsiveness programs, said the agency awards grants based on merit and doesn't coordinate its activities with other federal government departments.
