Learn the science behind fire escape stairways
Building access fire escape stairways are classic historic elements that make a city feel like a city. Fire escapes aren’t always pretty but they are icons of progress towards safety in the densely populated cities of the east coast of America. Fire escapes exist in other parts of the world, but the USA drove the development of standardized requirements through the NFPA after the Great Boston Fire of 1872. While America falls behind in most discernable ways, we still lead the world in the development of fire safety. The history of the evolution of the first American industrial powerhouse cities, such as Baltimore and New York, informs an understanding of the reality today. It was a big business then, as it is now. In the early days of America without oversight, in a capitalist mad market, the first fire bridgades were competing gangs who would steal the building owner’s belongings and let fire rage until they were paid a ransom to extinguish the blaze.
Today, though, we find the roots of the modern building code based on safety.
Pictures of a typical decades old exterior fire escape stairway follow.
Fire escapes allow building occupants and users to egrees and flee from a building fire through an external stair. Modern stairways are also now built to deter engulfment and propagation of fires, through things like stair pressurization fans, automatic door closers, and smike evac systems, but historic buildings weren’t originally built with comprable provisions.
The photo below shows another photo of a crowded and complicated system of fire egress stairways in an urban alley.
This building has a modern fire escape stairway with a larger footprint to allow for modern egress spatial requirements.
The stairway in the picture above is built with components of both steel and wrought iron. The fire escape stairway in the picture below is built entirely with steel components. In the modern steel stairway all connections are made with full welds, either by SMAW methods or MIG welds. By comparison, in the wrought iron stairways of the historic past, many connections between metal elements were made with rivets and fasteners. Yet both modern steel and historic wrought iron are ferrous metals and therefore susceptible to oxidation through exposure to precipitation and moisture. Painting and routine maintenance and repainting are required for both types of materials.
