[FRex]

Many if not most of 'fire' victims actually die due to burns to respiratory system due to hot smoke inhalation, suffocate via carbon dioxide displacing oxygen, get poisoned by carbon monoxide or cyanide compounds, etc.

Dying of burns is so hard that even some people who self immolate 'only' die days after or suffer life long impairment. It doesn't matter if the building doesn't burn because all the furniture in people flats will produce 'enough' heat and smoke in minutes, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KSl9s6GjgY

[lsc]

Super interesting. I just outfitted my bedroom workshop with minimal first aid stuff (a wall mounted box with bandages and stuff as well as wall mounted eyewash bottles and a fire extinguisher)

I have been looking at respirators; I didn't get one 'cause my workshop isn't a chemistry lab, but I did look at them, and apparently one option is a bottle of compressed air with a valve so you can breath the compressed air.

The idea, of course, is that no matter how toxic whatever you released into the air was, if you were breathing this compressed air thing it wouldn't get into your lungs.

But... aside from avoiding the halon, I hadn't thought of it as something you would want in a fire and not just in a toxic gas situation, but from your description, it sounds like it'd really help you get out of the building.

[Swizec]

Bloody hell that is terrifying! Short of having a barren apartment, is there anything you can do to guard against this?

[PhasmaFelis]

Making sure your sprinklers are in working order seems like a good start. Also, based on the video I'd say "don't keep dry Christmas trees around." I dunno how they ignited that tree, but it went from fine to ceiling-high inferno in four seconds flat. I don't think typical furniture will catch nearly that fast in typical home-fire circumstances (overheated electrical devices, dropped cigarettes, etc). I wonder if keeping the tree in a watering stand and topping it up regularly helps.

[King-Aaron]

> dropped cigarettes, etc

I remember reading an article a while ago (https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/v13i6.pdf not sure if it's still valid as it's from 2010), but a significant number of fatal house fires start in the bedroom due to dropped cigarettes... The report mentions that 2% of residential fires are smoking-related, and an average of 365 deals (i.e. in the United States, someone dies every day from setting their house on fire due to smoking!!). So clearly cigarettes can burn a house down pretty rapidly. I would assume, of course, that a substantial number of those deaths would have been people falling asleep and dropping the cig, which probably negates the speed of the fire spreading as being a factor.

Synthetic materials in furniture, carpet, clothing etc burns extremely rapidly as seen in the video. Not to mention that the tree looked to be very dry, and went up like dry grass would. In that situation, the radiated heat from that tree would be more than enough to rapidly set fire to the furniture around it.

An anecdote I can refer to myself is having dropped a cigarette in the car once, and having the entire rear bench-seat catch on fire within moments. (Car was moving at 100kph, so I assume the extra air forced into the environment didn't help!).

[jabl]

Another common way to die in a fire is to come home drunk from the bar, decide you're hungry and put something in the oven/stove, then pass out.

IIRC a lot of the dropped cigarette fire deaths are also related to alcohol consumption.

[FRex]

It literally said that this is a video of 'dry scotch pine tree fire' at the start, wet things of course don't burn as easily.

[wahern]

Looks like it: https://www.fema.gov/media-library/assets/videos/76417

Though, not sure what "Needle moisture content > 100%" means. That it's transpiring?

[FRex]

Some Christmas trees are fake plastic ones, not real trees, I have no idea how they'd burn. I guess leaving one unattended with lights on it is always a bad idea.

[vlehto]

If you ever find yourself in a fire, get low. On all fours if you have to.

You should have at least two exists from your apartment. And when you are escaping fire, always open the doors very carefully. First like 5cm to see if there is any smoke coming from behind the door. And hold tight, because fires can suck/blow doors open with those huge air pressure variations.

And perhaps most importantly, do not let anybody to have anything flammable under the stairs in the common staircase. This is specifically against the fire code practically everywhere. But it's also common place for mothers to put their strollers.

[cr1895]

>First like 5cm to see if there is any smoke coming from behind the door.

Even before doing that, touch the door/handle with the back of your hand to see if it's hot.

[FRex]

Have a big can of good brand fire extinguishing spray (it's smaller than a fire extinguisher and easier to use, not that fire extinguishers are hard to use, I used dry powder and carbon dioxide snow ones no problem during training) handy and don't leave electric lights unattended on Christmas trees I guess?

For more horror (and to become scared of windows and doors during a fire) see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backdraft

[azernik]

A wet cloth over the mouth/nose will catch a lot of the particulates and water-soluble vapors, though it won't help a lot with the heat.