A Global Endeavor to Communicate Fire Knowledge

Describe the Fire Risk of a building? The effects of an unwanted fire effect people, property, and mission. Any fire will stop - but where? You will need to communicate your fire risk findings to others.

Can you share your total findings with another person without saying a word? Can you show the Fire Risk to the Building Manager so s/he understands it enough to feel comfortable taking action? Can you put it all on the back of one envelope (before a fire)?

You can now. A way exists. Put all you now know about the Fire Risk of a building on one side of a sheet of paper--before the fire. The technique is called the L-Curve Method.

The L-Curve Method displays what you believe to be true, just as you do now. It does so in any language. It does so using any engineering units. It enables you to communicate Fire Risk and alternative Fire Defense.

Fire, as it grows in a building, goes through four separate but specific stages. Fire never backs up. Those four stages occur in the order fire requires. They are Stages:

A. What is the Risk of an unwanted Fire starting?
B. If a fire does start, what is the Risk a flame will not stay small (less than knee- high)?
C. If the flame gets large, will it be stopped within the Room of Fire Origin?
D. If the fire gets out of the Room of Origin, where will it stop?

These last two Stages (C and D) apply the L-Curve Method. A curve of the existing Fire Risk in a building or planned Fire Risk of a design results. This curve is leading some authorities to say, "Meet the code or meet the curve." Independent of language and of engineering units, the performance-based L-Curve Method is gaining enthusiastic worldwide support.

Reading an L-CurveGetting the Numbers

Using the L-Curve