In recent years a number of key stakeholders have taken an active interest in fires involving timber-frame buildings. One particular area of concern is the unseen spread of fire within external wall cavities and roof voids. Such fires pose a real challenge for the fire and rescue service and represent a potential life safety risk and a significant risk of damage to property. Concern has been expressed that some existing methods of providing fire protection to external wall cavities within timber frame buildings are not performing properly. The BRE Trust in collaboration with the NHBC Foundation have sponsored a research project to investigate the performance of measures to inhibit the spread of fire and smoke within external wall cavities and to identify common modes of failure. This paper presents the findings from the research project. The paper focuses on two key issues namely: 1. A review of existing information in relation to cavity fire incidents involving the external wall in timber frame building. Information was collated from previous research projects, fire investigations and available statistics. 2. An experimental programme has been undertaken as part of this project. A total of twenty one experiments have been completed to investigate the performance of generic forms of horizontal cavity barrier when subject to a fire scenario representative of a fire within a ventilated external wall cavity. The influence of discontinuities and gaps has been investigated to assess the impact of poor workmanship and quality control on performance.
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