Building Construction for the Fire - Essay Example

According to Brannigan (1992), what seemed to be the deciding factor that would prove that mill construction is superior is that the slow-burning characteristic of heavy timber is of no value once the fire department must fall back to defensive tactics against the fire, and thus heavy timber becomes long burning. What mill construction techniques provide is a precautionary system to address the fire before it even fans across the building. In contrast to heavy timber which assumes that the thickness and composition of its construction material may well be a hindrance for the progression of the fire, mill construction prevents fire before it even begins by placing firewalls that would constrict its spread, not to mention modern automatic sprinklers that extinguish fire almost instantaneously upon detection.

Lastly, mill construction provisions recognize that wood assemblies, in general, are susceptible to combustion and collapse because of the very nature of the material used and thus reinforces it with another safety measure.