Toxic gases from house fires involving natural and synthetic polymers under various conditions

Abstract

To evaluate the toxicity of fire effluent gases in real fire conditions, fire experiments were conducted in a full-scale 2-story fire resistant house. Natural polymers only and mixtures of natural and synthetic polymers were burned in one of the ground floor rooms under different opening conditions. This paper describes, among other things, major toxic species in the burn room and on the upper floor after the flashover of fires, evaluation of the toxic potential of the atmosphere in the upper floor room during fires, and the behaviour of rabbits exposed to this atmosphere. This paper also touches on a relation between COHb and CN − in the blood of rabbits. The results suggest that HCN contributes to death or incapacitation to some extent in the fires especially involving synthetic polymers.