THE CULT OF THE FIREPROOF BUILDING I call it a cult because to believe in it required a total disregard of logic and intelligence.

Beginning before the 1900s the insurance industry began to class the fire risk of a building by its basic construction. A wood frame building was combustible construction. A steel framed building (without fireproofing covering of the steel) was a non-combustible building. A masonry building with wood floors and roof was ordinary construction and all masonry buildings (often having steel reinforced concrete floors and roof) was a fireproof building. The so-called Fireproof building was, as per the logic of the insurers and the NFPA, an inherently fire safe building. It was the icon of the fire profession. This building type was considered to be the ultimate fire-safe building. Indeed, according to the insurers and the NFPA it was so fire-safe that sprinklers were not needed. Not only the artificially high cost of the system a deterrent against installing it; the Cult of the Fireproof Building held that the fireproof building was so fire-safe that no sprinkler protection was needed. Even the one family dwelling was constructed as a fireproof building in this respect. The entire interior of a home was sheathed with a fireproofing material called gypsum wallboard or often just sheetrock.. Theoretically this interior sheathing would shield the wood framing from a fire within the building for a time of 15 minutes to sometimes hour. In reality, what the sheathing did was (usually) contain the fire within the home and prevent a spread of the fire to the neighbors long enough to allow the firefighters to arrive and control the fire before the whole neighborhood was involved. Thus, although the fireproof building was touted as an inherently fire-safe building, the real intent was to limit the fire damage to one building or one part of a building. The reason why one had to be but a short step above an idiot to believe the fireproof building was a fire-safe building is because the logic is so illogical. Let us say the building is classed as being fire rated for four hours. That is, it would take an internal fire four hours to bring the building down. Well if a fire up to a four hour duration expected to occur within the building, and if the high cost is paid to construct the building accordingly, obviously someone within that building will be killed by the fire long before the structural integrity of the building itself is seriously impaired. So, within a 4 hour rated fireproof building a 4 hour fire is anticipated. Clearly, when the NFPA/insurers touted the fireproof building as being the ultimate firesafe building they were more interested in limiting the size of the insurance loss than they were in protecting lives. But, considering that a home is sheathed throughout with fire rated wallboard, and that fires within even the fireproof buildings are deadly, one can say that probably 99 percent of all fire deaths occurred within fireproofed buildings. Yet these buildings did not need sprinklers according to the NFPA codes of pre 1980.