The Fire Department Mass Timber Strategy w/ Erich Roden and Mason Brandt

Mass timber projects don’t succeed because of one company, but entire ecosystems.

Erich Roden retired as a Deputy Chief of the Milwaukee Fire Department after 34 years and now runs Murphy Roden Group. He served on the UL Fire Safety Research Institute and the Wisconsin Mass Timber Task Force that built the variance pathway for the Ascent. Mason Brandt is President and Principal Engineer of WoodCore Engineering, with 25+ mass timber projects designed. 

Together they break down where fire service skepticism comes from, what fire performance actually requires at the connection and member level, how the Ascent in Milwaukee got pulled from concept phase to the world's tallest mass timber building at completion, and what's shifting in East Coast markets, including FDNY's move from a flat "no" to running a mass timber primer in their own trade magazine. 

This episode explores fire safety in mass timber and how collaboration between engineers, architects, developers, manufacturers, and fire departments makes projects like the Ascent possible.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:33

Today's episode is a conversation between two people who spent their careers on opposite sides of that table. Eric Roden spent 34 years in the fire department, finishing as a deputy chief. He served on the UL Fire Safety Research Institute, where they burned a lot of CLT, and he sat on the Wisconsin Mass Timber Task Force that helped build the various pathways for the extent, the tallest Mass Timber building in the world at the time. Mason Brandt is the president of Woodcore Engineering with 25 plus Mass Timber projects under his belt. And in this episode, he's the engineering voice on what fire performance actually requires at the connection and member level. So here's what we covered. For design and engineering teams, connection detailing and how the tar rate drives member sizing and why exposed steel is the failure point that keeps fire marshals up at night. For developers and owners, using the extensive story is a blueprint. New land development brought the Milwaukee Fire Department into the conversation in the initial concept phase. And Eric breaks down exactly what that process looked like and why it's the reason the building got built the way it did. And for anyone taking mass timber into a new market, what's shifting with major metro departments like New York State? Why East Coast project pipelines are now almost double or triple that of West Coast? And what fire departments in unfamiliar markets actually need to see before they're comfortable staying yet. Because as Eric would say, fire departments aren't gatekeepers. They just want to be brought in early, shown the data, and convinced that their ability to fight fire won't be compromised. All right, let's get into it.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

I've been a uh actually I'm in my 34th year in the fire service, and I recently retired as a deputy chief for the city of Milwaukee Fire Department. Um my role there, my last role there was the essentially a citywide shift commander where I was responsible for all field operations on a 24-hour period. Um and one of my favorite parts of my job, which was kind of a later in my career de facto position, was uh kind of the you know, the built environment uh building and fire protection system subject matter expert for the fire department. Uh I'm not a fire protection engineer. And uh, however, you know, one of my bally wicks uh coming up through the fire service was NFPA 1413 and do a lot of the IBC stuff. So I was asked a lot to you know help out on some of the you know building renovations, new projects, and and some of the other wonky questions that our Department of Neighborhood Services had, which is essentially our buildings department in the city of Milwaukee. Um so I'd advise on them. Um and again, like I said, it was actually one of my favorite parts of my job. You know, I was able to get into these buildings, see what the latest and greatest stuff was, and some of the innovations that were coming into the built environment. Um but uh, you know, I've also um being on the academic side, I was an editor-in-chief of a major firefighting trade magazine for a lot of years. Uh so I was able to get around the country, travel a lot, and see all the other half-libs and what they were building and um how they were fighting fires in these buildings. Um, I also serve on uh the advisory board of the uh underwriters laboratories fire safety research institute. Um we burned um a lot of you know, a lot of CLT, a lot of uh, you know, building CA the fire behavior and thermodynamics in these structures and uh eliminated a lot of fallacies and urban legends we can talk about later uh in the fire service with regards to how fire impacts wood and cellulose material and uh the like. Oh, and uh most recently I served on uh mass timber task force uh for the state of Wisconsin. Uh we developed a document which is essentially uh a way to codify tall mass timber in the state of Wisconsin and provide a pathway for variances because uh you know, like the ascent building we'll talk about uh in a moment. Um, you know, a lot of these grandiose projects will likely seek the variance process to do a lot of cool things to these buildings and make them most more aesthetically pleasing and such. So this provides a you know a better pathway for those developers and engineers and and fire departments to um you know get these buildings built.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

For sure. Um so thank you for unpacking your background there a little bit. Uh question that I would have for you is before you got all the way through to the end of all this different testing and involved in those task force, like what was your slash um your peers in the fire departments and the fireworld's perspective on mass timber? And like how do you think that's changed from maybe initial assumptions to today?

SPEAKER_02 4:47

That's a really good question. So I like to start my shop worn uh joke. You know, firefighters hate two things, uh change and the way things are, right? So um, you know, we historically we only fought fires in you know type four buildings, uh especially in the city of Milwaukee. It's a you know, it's uh you know a post-industrial uh city, um, had a lot of manufacturing, a lot of those types of buildings present. A lot of them are still standing to this very day. And uh and we also had true-dimensional lumber uh private dwellings, you know, your two and a half story old colonials, Victorians and the like. So that was kind of our bread and butter fire, fire buildings. And then uh we were kind of you know thrown for a loop in the 1970s with the advent of lightweight wood construction, you know, TGII beans, uh, wood trusses, Gussa plates, and that gave us a lot of fits in the fire service. You know, we had a lot of fatalities, and you know, unfortunately, you know, we're very parochial, so a lot of the experiences we learn you know spreads across the country, and we kind of you know believe what we tell each other, and uh we we have a lot of warnings and and uh stuff that we pass along. And one of those was a uh uh don't trust the truss, was kind of the you know the adage um that was pervasive throughout the fire service for 30 years, uh, even on even to this day it's still being used. And that was uh as a result of the Wall Bombs fire, I believe, in 1966 in the city of New York. They used bolstring trusses, and one of those trusses failed, causing 12 firefighters to uh you know plunge into the fire building and uh you know subsequently lose their lives. So that spread like wildfire, no pun intended, across the fire service that all trusses are bad, and there was uh you know a similar fire in Hackensack, New Jersey. So these fires started compounding, and the story started in uh you know the academics in the fire service really you know uh gave the the wood industry a bad shake at that time. So um when we fast forward to you know the current mass timber and you know type type four structures A through C and heavy timber, um there's kind of a lack of trust uh endemically in the fire service with these buildings. Um obviously a lot of the firefighters, actually every firefighter for the most part, um, today uh wasn't around when those buildings were built. Uh, we're not getting as many fires as we used to in those buildings, um, but we still get a lot of them. And usually the the soundbite you hear after one of those fires is I can't believe what a shellacking that building took. We had this a fire alarm fire, you could see this fire from space, and the building's still standing. Well, that's you know, um you know in part due to the dimensional size of this lumber. Um but you know, those stories really don't get passed around uh you know too much. They're not making the the textbooks and the peer review articles and journals. And um then along comes you know current CLT, NLT, you know, a lot of the other um you know, panel and and the ass timber-based construction principles that we're seeing now. And so there's that inherent distrust of the industry, right? You know, the wood industry gave us lightweight wood construction years ago, and this is the next thing they're they're forcing on us. And you know, as these buildings are being built, the fire service is you know kind of getting their nose under the tent to see all these things are built. And you know, the ascent was the you know, the the epitome of how to do it right in the the winning recipe to get firefighters aware uh versed and uh you know, trusting these buildings again.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. But I can see from you know historical engineered wood product innovation stumbles how you can carry that forward um into light mass chamber today. So um knowing the background of kind of like perceptions in the fire industry and we'll just call it wood-based construction, when you started getting involved with the the testing, I guess, specifically for mass chamber, what did you find that perhaps surprised you or ran counter to the narrative for so long?

SPEAKER_02 8:42

Uh well, one of my personal thoughts was, you know, how are these things connected? How are what are the connection systems? What are, you know, the current best practices for putting these things together, right? And I mean, if you look at, you know, anything you own, use, whatever, it, you know, anything made from more than one thing, it's how it's put together, is is you know, determines the function and stability and quality of the of the thing, so to speak. Um, and that was what we you know, we realized, you know, especially the ATF studies, um, what they found was you know, shoddy craftsmanship um on these connections caused some devastating you know loss of connectivity of the structural members. Um those that were you know engineered with an inch of their life, like you know, the projects are today, uh you didn't see that. I mean, you saw the the char layer and the prescriptive char layer um you know do what it's supposed to do. And you know, you kind of look at the data, the data are correct, and and you know, the thermodynamics and and the fire behavior is is what we expected, and you know, these buildings hold up.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Mason, what would you say around like the current approach of the industry is, or maybe for those that are doing it, what I would say to like your guys' standard on connection design is like what are you guys doing um that can convey confidence into like the fire side of things?

SPEAKER_01 10:00

That's a great question, Bree. Um connection design a lot of times is driven by the code requirement for the build. When we look at DL's life percent, uh those kind of connections specifically need a two or three hour rating, similar to what a concrete uh connection requirement would be on a building that styles. On the lower scale, uh it really comes back to um as Eric said, how things are put together. If the connection is a steel bucket hanger, right, that's gonna behave very similar to it might be thicker steel, but it might behave similar to how we connect a TJI to a curve with a uh like H2 banger, right? So if we're looking for fire performance out of the connections, we really want to we really don't want to see exposed steel. Right? Um steel behaves where it loses strength as it's heated, uh and that's where it's a failure point. It reaches a certain temperature that overcomes the steel's inherent strength to hold itself up compared to wood, where wood maintains its strength by using wood fibers to resist those forces. And as wood burns away, it uses section, and at a certain point, uh there's not enough wood section left to support the load it's carrying, and that's how it fails. So to get confidence, right? If you go into a building of type 4 A, B, C construction that has a rating requirement, you're gonna see um all those openings and gaps in that connection sealed up, protected from any kind of fire attack. Um if you see exposed bolts, that's a piece where we should pay attention to how that connection is built.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Yeah. Um, and I think all of these issues that we talked about get uh exponentially more important when you're building the world's tallest mass timber building, um, which is what you were involved with, Eric. Can you walk me through kind of how that whole journey started?

SPEAKER_02 11:50

Yeah, I'll tell you, you know, I jokely call it a Cinder O story, but it you know it really became that. I mean, um, you know, I was sitting in my I was a battalion chief at the time, and you know, I'm sitting in my battalion office, and I get a phone call from the fire chief secretary who said, uh, hey, I need you to come downtown ASAP. We have a local developer that wants to build at the time. It was a 23-story piece of wood, um, you know, on one of the busiest avenues in the city of Milwaukee. Um, you know, the fire chief has a lot of concerns, the questions, could you come down and help him out? He says, you know, you're you're the guy, right? Um, so I kind of chuggled to myself because this was, you know, close to the time of the ATF study, some of the UL stuff that was done, and a lot of the UL researchers were involved in those studies, and uh, you know, we you know poured over the data to look at that stuff because you know, we we we heard it was in town, we knew it was coming. Um so you know, that we had a lot of eyes and uh and good minds on it. So so I gather some of the some of the things that I had on it um at my disposal, and then I you know quickly contacted uh Sean Decrane, who worked for you all at the time, and uh some of the other fire service subject matter experts say, hey, is there anything new that I'm you know missing? And you know, I'm I gotta head down and talk to the boss. So um I want to you know act like I know what I'm talking about here. So uh I get downtown and you know he has this proposal from New Land Development for uh you know a 23-story building on a concrete podium. And you know, I quickly allayed a lot of his concerns and fears about how these things burn, because again, you know, historically, you know, this fire chief, like every other you know, my most firefighters in the United States, were conditioned and raised on you know, wood is bad, it's going to burn, it's going to collapse. And you know, we've had you know fires in the city of Milwaukee where firefighters immediately fell into basements because of you know burned away TGI beans. So you know, I'd explain the differences, I'd explain char layer, how the you know CLT panels were made, and you know, when you put five of them together, here's what happens when they burn in. So he said, okay, well, you know, the assistant chief and yourself would be going to a meeting at you know Department of Neighborhood Services, and you know, definitely uh give me the scoop on that. So um this was I believe in 2018, uh fall of 2018. So the uh Newland Development and Corb Architects um you know proposes to the city that they had it, you know, an idea of this you know concept of the world's tallest mass timber building. And um, you know, they they kind of shopped project around a couple conferences, I believe, um, and kind of got some industry support and and uh some firepower, if you will, um, and eyes on the project. So, you know, we go to this first meeting, and Newland had all the firepower in the mass industry, um, as timber industry, I should say, in the room. You know, you had David Barber, um, you had you know, Thornton Thomas said you had all you know, all the right people in the room. And it was kind of a cathartic moment because you know, I quickly realized, oh, this thing isn't in a permit yet. This thing is still you know being penciled out. Why are we here now? And you know, that was kind of uh you know the inverse of how the fire department's been involved with projects. Usually everything's done, you know, sign sealed delivered, staked dinners ate and everything the night before to get approvals on everything. And um and then we kind of come in and give our two cents, and you know, if it meets code, there's really nothing we can say, right? And um this is the opposite of that. They wanted to hear the fire department's concerns, thoughts, uh gripes, and and um you know kind of operational considerations, and you know, I you know quickly wiped the tears away because it was like I said, it was kind of a you know, something we're not used to seeing, and and uh you know, and beyond flattery, it was it was good because we kind of saw you know everything that they were trying to do with the building. We knew they were going to pursue variances because at the time uh the city was under the 2015 IBC, so this thing exceeded it by a million stories, right? So um, so we knew they were gonna have, you know, I thought, you know, I don't know how this is going to get approved. It far exceeds the IBC and the you know the city ordinances and and what like and whatnot, I should say. And uh so I'm like, yeah, you know, they agreed to some of the concerns we had with the structure under construction that were already in the code, you know, sealing it up, you know, four floors below, and um no debris, no you know, smoking and grilling and that kind of stuff. And and we believed them. I mean, I they they were sincere, and they you know, it wasn't the the typical boilerplate, you know, slide over a folder with some schematics and drawings of the building. They were generally trying to convince us that no, they were going to do everything that they promised. And again, like I guess uh that's the last thing we ever heard at a lot of these meetings, and I don't mean to to rag on developers too much. They're you know, they they have jobs to do, but they're also used to a process too, where the fire department comes in later and and whatnot. So, you know, I was very pleasantly surprised that you know with how quick we brought in. Um so as the project progressed, they um obviously were required to do some performance-based testing to exceed um you know the IBC and get the variances. And you know, I get a phone call, you know, from uh, you know, Jason Corb, the architect, says, Hey, what are you doing uh on this day? We're all headed out to Madison to you know burn a bunch of timbers. And I was, yeah, I'll go out there, check it out. And you know, uh professionally curious and and I was you know personally curious as oh man, you know, they're gonna throw 3,000 degrees at this thing for three hours. All right, we're gonna find out for sure now. And um so we went to Forest Podic Labs in Madison, got a cool tour of the place and saw everything they're doing, and and uh then walked over to the furnace, and it's sitting in there is one of the Austrian timbers that they were going to use for the ascent. And they fired the thing up, uh, came back a few hours later and pulled the thing out. It chipped away the burn layer, and the still thing still had, I believe, almost 100% of the structural integrity. So I mean, I mean I mean put my you know face into the sight glass watching the you know the jets burn this thing to smithereens, and you know, I it was a an eye-opening moment of uh of you know proof of concept and you know and proof and testing. Do these things burn the way they're prescribed? They you know the charter layer did what it was supposed to do, and uh it still retained its structural integrity. So um me already being a believer in and understanding the construction, I think you know that was kind of the uh a seminal moment for the fire service and you know the uh you know the developers and the in the city itself that yeah, this this thing is going to hold up if it's on fire. Um and obviously 3,000 degrees for three hours is no fire we're going to allow firefighters to crawl into you know for that long. And you know, we'll be pulling people out anyway. So that's uh a latent effect of of of fire fighting efforts. So um so you know the approvals were were given, you know. The um one thing we did ask for was you know more Jipcrete in the public hallways. Uh and the owner of New Line Development kind of leaned over to me and says, Yeah, you know, you know, we we agree with that. You know, we want you guys to feel confident in this building. We're gonna give you the Gipcrete in the public hallways. And um, and they were also gonna add two more floors, so it's gonna be 25 stories. And you know, I heard Jip Creet in the public hallways, because uh, you know, the stairwells and our um public hallways, our beach had to launch firefighting operations from I said, no problem. You know, you know, add two more stories, I'm you know, we're not going to you know refute that or or or fight it. So it became a 25-story uh building at that point. Um during construction, uh, you know, they offered unlimited inspections, drive-bys, site visits, and uh Christian Hansen from CeeDee Smith, uh like I said at the Mass Timber Conference, should be in the Mass Timber Hall of Fame for what he did for us. Uh he was the project manager of the Ascent and uh gave no less than a million tours to Milwaukee firefighters um to show them the building, how it was put together. And I mean, I have tons of pictures of my firefighters walking through the building and they're just looking at this thing in awe of the amount of wood. And one of the seminal sound bites they had was uh, hey chief, you know how much fire it would take to burn this amount of wood down? I said, exactly. And um, so that it was it was really good for them to see that, and obviously word of mouth spread across you know 36 firehouses in the city, then everybody wanted to come down and see it. So we we managed to get most firefighters through it. Um we just had a great time, you know. We you know, guys, you know, got to know Chris and you know he knew the fire parts. So the relationships not only with the developers, the architects, and the engineers of the building um were amazing, but also the people building it. You know, the iron workers that were putting these things together were showing us step by step how they sink a timber in, and you know, they had the you know, they would torque the bolt in, and then the guy with the glue gun would come in right behind him, fill that with glue, and you know, you couldn't interrupt them because if he you know put too much or too little in, I mean the whole thing was was a mess. And you know, how they shimmed up each floor every day. I mean, it was just uh you know an amazing story and and and process and build to be a part of. And um, I mean, even the crane operator um was uh I believe he's a volunteer firefighter um for where he came from. So you know, there was a lot of joculary back and forth, you know, he'd be on his radio talking down to us, and we'd be busting this job. So, hey, how long does it take you to get up there? You know, how many stops you have to take to climb up there? And and he would joke with us saying, Hey, well, how come your helmets look so clean? Don't you guys get any fires here in the city? So it's a lot of that back and forth. So I mean, every every like minute of that story was great. I mean, it was it was I was actually like a lot of firefighters and and uh people on in my administration, we were actually sad when it was finally finished because we're weren't able to stop by every day and and hang out. But um it was it was just a great experience, and you know, at the end of the day, you realize, you know, what a winning recipe that whole um you know approval process and and build was um for you know you know inter you know, interagency relations, you know, firefighters understanding, you know, building engineering and MEP better and you know, um you know, not necessarily having a say in that kind of stuff, but having a say in in terms of, you know, um what's our role in approving this building and, you know, and even just having, you know, general concern for our safety and well-being and and uh just uh professional approval of it for sure.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

And and I this is kind of my own little talking point, but I always say that there's not necessarily like a lack of expertise or educational material or data. It's just a lack of awareness and exposure to what's happening, right? And I think you can hear that through your story. So we talked a lot about like the the fire department like looking at what the developer's doing, what the building's made out of, um, and kind of like understanding from like the the design build ownership team what you guys are looking at. I think it would be pretty interesting to go in the reverse and say like how do you fight fire in a building and why does that matter for how we design and build them?

SPEAKER_02 22:59

Well here's something you know interesting and in you know might alleve some of the concerns some developers that are listening to this might have um we will fight fires the exact same way in a high rise residential type 1A or type you know 1B structure the same way we will in a high rise residential mass timber building. So I'll give you a I guess a real quick synopsis of of what we're thinking when we get there is so we kind of have sections of the building that we prioritize when we we arrive but we always use that interior um uh interior stairs of public hallways again is like our beach head to launch our our fireframe operations we'll usually bring all our toys up and a hose and nozzles to the floor below the fire floor uh we'll get off the elevators you know several floors below uh just for you know uh you know safety factor and we'll march up to the floor below uh we'll kind of take a look at the fire floor see if you know the apartment doors open and you know do we have to charge our hose lines below or or up on on the fire floor itself and um yeah we just you know bring all all of our stuff there we have all our equipment and we'll prioritize the fire floor uh the floor directly above the fire floor and we'll start from the top floor usually work down um just based just based on stack effect and some of the smoke movement within the structure um but again like I said it's the same principles and and firefighting operations in these buildings as we would you know conventional legacy type one um but so that's that's what we're thinking so I mean it if if developers kind of explain to uh the fire department you know you are not going to have to change your firefighting operations um and I should say um as an aside that um we prefer you know CIPC you know stairwells um I know there's there's a big push to have mass timber stairwell construction um obviously it's not going to collapse readily but you know just having that you know sense of security that we know we're we're operating from a concrete core is going to give us a lot of confidence and you know kind of hanging out in these buildings until we get the fire out versus considering pulling out or backing out and at serious fires. And I'll also say you know these buildings are also required to you know be sprinklered within an inch of their life. So um that is going to do the lion's share of the work before we even get there. So it's really us just you know making sure that the fire's out the sprinklerheads did their job um we've deployed our personnel to essentially search for people because regardless of sprinkler activation you're still going to have heavy smoke conditions. So that would be the main focus versus worrying about you know the structural integrity of these buildings.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

And I I don't I'll do a follow-up question and I'll throw this one to you first Mason. So if you're if you're outside the industry because a lot of public feedback and public officials that may not be fire experts or design experts et cetera have opinion and sway on like what gets done whether through code environment policy all that kind of stuff but um when we're talking about ratings for buildings and like the safety and what that translates into I think there's a little bit of a misconception that concrete or steel buildings don't burn or that uh or and distinguishing like what the the the rating means. So it's if you have a one a two or a three hour rating it doesn't mean that your building's not going to burn but it's it's a safety metric for how long and what that means. Mason could you unpack that a little bit for us first?

SPEAKER_01 26:27

Historically the stigma around wood and timber has been that wood's bad wood's burr wood burns right um and the big issue with that is the wood adds fuel to the fire where steel and concrete don't do that. Right? They're non-combustible, they don't burn um but we don't always consider how they interact with the fire fully to understand if it's a better or more detrimental system. A few months ago I got to sit through a a webinar on one Meridian plaza in Philadelphia um that fire was back in I think late 80s early 90s and it's one of the few instances where a uh high rise was intentionally torn down uh because it was so damaged by fire. And it's one of the case studies that we use to support requiring uh full sprinkler systems in all high rises that are constructed new uh that fire there was a a high a sprinkler system put in by a tenant it wasn't required by code and that tenant sprinkler system was what eventually controlled the fire it it eliminated a lot of the idea that just because it's steel and concrete the gobing won't suffer structurally from a fire. The structural systems and structural steel in that building were damaged to the point where a consulting engineer pretty much ripped the building off and said it couldn't be repaired. It had to be torn down. So one million plaza doesn't exist today in the city of Philadelphia that was also a uh fire that the city of Philadelphia had a firefighter fatality on uh so it's it's an impactful incident. I believe that fire burned for more than 12 hours before the fire department had to evacuate. And that kind of leads into the conversation of the the rating and fire performance in building right fire has a range of intensity and how we evaluate fire performance we have to set a standard fire somewhere uh one of the big pushbacks from the fire services today's fires don't follow that model of what a standard fire curve is in temperature and time. What I what I continue to uh the piece I continue to impart on the firefighters that I teach and talk to is yeah our fires are different. We have different fuels a lot of our materials are synthetic they burn hotter they burn faster right but we have to compare these things based on some benchmark um so that's what that's how the fire test curve is still relevant. It's still a relevant test that says hey if you have a two hour rated system it has roughly double the fire resistance as a one hour rated system right it's not guaranteed to burn for one hour or for two hours and be strong there are two hour rated systems that might only last 30 minutes depending on the time and intensity and the exact situation right so they're they're tools we use to measure and compare how resistant the system is to a fire.

SPEAKER_02 29:19

Got it and Eric when you were going through the ascent process um you mentioned a a three hour rating but they they haven't tested that as an industry yet that was something kind of specific to this project is that is that right uh yes I mean they I mean they were the manufacturer's design I believe and tested it to that but it would have to be proven um to get the variants uh at Forest Product Labs they they agreed to do the testing for us and uh yeah it it it proved its point.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Yeah and one of the things um we kind of touched about this a little bit is like the actual how that mass timber resists fire right so we look at that as like the char layer but can can you unpack like what actually happens and then like the impacts it has um structurally but specifically like for the fire department and like your your opinions and um I guess what you think overall about that.

SPEAKER_02 30:14

Yeah I mean uh you know it's a natural material and you know as it gets heated up it pyrolizes it it you know off gases it contributes to the combustion reaction uh and then it starts to charge so naturally it starts putting itself out um to use definitely firefighter layman's terms on that um but it's uh you know like Mason you know mentioned it is the contents that that causes the fits and and fires um I mean if you anyone listening to this takes a look around their office or their or their home um you know we have couches TVs everything which is essentially gasoline and saw hood farm um you know throughout our our our living spaces and those ignite very quickly they they spread very quickly and um to a firefighter um regardless of the structural material use whether steel or concrete or or exposed mass timber the heat coming out of these apartments just say any one Ocumen fleeing their apartment leaves their apartment door open any approaching firefighters coming down that hall even in our all of our protective gear and our air masks and everything um a an apartment fully involved in fire is an apartment fully involved in fire it's going to feel pretty much the same um you know rarely do you know structures completely fail in fires um but we're not worried about any structural collapse uh you know we we we shouldn't have to worry about any structural collapse based on the uh natural performance of uh you know almost passive fire protection and you know in its uh natural construct um yeah again we don't have to concern ourselves with that or if it's a steel I mean firefighters aren't thinking oh what kind of hangers did they use on this you know is this uh you know you know how'd they sink these you know beams into the concrete um we need to get in there put those contents out you know and prevent those from spreading to the the actual structure um you know what Mason also alluded to is you know yeah steel and concrete's not combustible but it spalls it you know steel at 1100 degrees uh is going to elongate nine and a half inches per hundred feet so that's pushing out on that concrete it's it's kind of destabilizing the connections and and everything whereas wood doesn't do that you know it for lesser you know compression strength it's not elongating it's not pushing walls out it's not doing it's not going to you know inherently just collapse based on fire I mean I mean I don't want to say no way but it's very unlikely that all layers of a CLT panel are going to be involved in fire contribute to the fire um based on the the char layer so you know that's that's a benefit it's you know one of the things I talk about when I when I you know teach this stuff to firefighters is you know yeah sprinklers are going to put this fire out but also the you know the the wood itself is going to start extinguishing itself and charring um you know same thing in a campfire you know what you do with the alligator piece of wood you pull it out and throw a new one in because it's no longer burning right it's not giving off heat you know for your you know your s'mores and your your your campfire so um it's the same in an apartment so it has that that same effect um not to minimize it but uh or minimize I should say um but yeah so those are kind of the the wins with wood so to speak for for firefighters is that you know we can kind of especially the way these things are built and connected now and engineered uh within an instant of their life down to the last screw um we can have confidence that these you know these buildings aren't going to collapse and they're not the you know the the wood fallacy at the fire services you know currently suffering.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

What about um I'm curious like how the failure mode of you know timber versus concrete or steel affects your guys's job like Mason like maybe let's talk about like you know brittle or sudden failure um compared to like a more ductile failure and like warning system. Is that applicable in this scenario?

SPEAKER_01 34:16

It's something's considered right um as Eric said you know concrete when it's when it's attacked by fire at a certain temperature um the heat makes the water bubbles inside the concrete boil and uh that creates spalt. The spalling concern is then it exposes the steel rebar inside the concrete as that rebar weakens and elongates the the combination system of a reinforced concrete beam starts to lose the strength and fail. Steel is a more duct more ductile because you're getting that uh elongation over time you might have some localized issues that contribute to the failure. Um wood it's it's kind of improvement where if you see a consistent temperature a steady temperature of burning it's going to reduce the section as a as a a consistent rate and that's where a lot of our calculations are come come from with the charring factors. The wood itself is going to um I think it's roughly over an inch of section loss per hour. So when we on the design end we start doing the the analytical method to figure out how large these timber beams and ponds need to be to resist that fire uh that's proven through a calculation method and also a lot of times we do require um some kind of proof of concept testing and there's been plenty of testing to validate that concept and my calculation real got it um and so as mass timber is kind of like picking up right so I I saw some figures late last year where it's like from the first mass timber building to today plus or minus 700 projects built right now there are I think two like one to two times that in active design currently right so like lots lots of pickup in mass timber buildings and it's kind of spreading in different geographies in different regions like obviously like west coast Pacific Northwest very heavy with mass timber buildings and it's the way I see it's kind of like moving you know west to east.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

And Mason you're you're in the New England area um and then Eric you brought up like an article I'd like to talk about about like New England but specifically like NYC right because like there's lots of conversations around east coast mass timber specifically in like heavy dense urban areas.

SPEAKER_02 36:24

Like what what do you see um in the fire world conversations right now around mass timber um well the narrative's improving um it you know it's not you know because of the you know you know being me being a mouthpiece for you know the ascent um from the fire department's uh perspective but um a lot of these you know the the industry is is getting the word out there you know the science is getting out the you know the testing and and uh you know it's finally hitting the mark in in my opinion um so if you look at the the city of New York um you know I I did a lecture with the um uh you know the head of buildings for the city of New York and at that time it was gloom and doom the develop you know the the city and the fire department were like absolutely not not my backyard kind of thing um and I understood that I didn't you know poo poo it I didn't you know I you know I explained to him I'm like well have you talked to them about mass timber have you shown them the metrics and and some of the studies and you know they they've seen it but it was just you know that overriding concern of like do I want to put my name on this to approve one of these buildings you know in midtown Manhattan or something like that or downtown Brooklyn you know where you know buildings are almost touching each other at a hundred feet and um you know at the time the answer was no and um I brought along this is the latest issue of uh WNYF so what this is is a uh it's a firefighting trade magazine that's published by the uh FDNY and uh in their the current issue there's an article on mass timber and it's kind of uh a primer so to speak as to where mass timber is and the FDNY's involvement they are now heavily involved in um not just the approval process but the research and uh code writing behind it for the city and uh it's a promising article I mean it it it talks about you know what it is it gets into you know kind of the you know the SM119 and and some of that stuff um so you know we're getting more aware in the fire services of what this is and you know kind of the adage is you know so goes the FDNY so goes the rest of the fire service right they have a very robust uh billings and uh um fire marshal's division uh you know the city has an army of uh code inspectors and enforcers and so they have a lot of eyes and minds and um you know you know fingers doing research on this stuff so it wasn't a mass timber is bad article by any means um it did leave out a couple things on on water supply um obviously based on wood you know we need to have twice as much water to you know put a fire out in one of these buildings than a steel and concrete one um but what the article doesn't have in there is the fact that if you know we go over 120 feet in these buildings you have to have dual water supply as a fire pump um at at those heights uh conversely a type one structure doesn't have those requirements unless the building is over I believe uh 420 feet so um the water is there for firefighters in these buildings and I you know as you know this stuff gets out and you know kind of um at the forefront of our our firefighting you know education and whatnot I think um you know these buildings will be considered like any type one you know building in the city of New York uh or anywhere uh USA you know in the near future so I think the industry is doing a really good job um talking about itself getting the word out and um you know not only just seeing the aesthetic beauty of these buildings and you know the appeal of the natural appeal as you walk into these buildings um I don't think you're gonna have the the doomsday you know you know kind of wood fallacies that we had uh you know in the 80s and 90s so um so step in the right direction uh mason what's your what are the conversations like with peers and project partners on the east coast like right now for you yeah east coast has been a a huge increase in the interest um like you said a lot of these projects started out in the Pacific Northwest um and that was a developed market because we were really close to sawmills and a lot of manufacturers and the interest is probably double or triple now with projects in design in construction on the East Coast as it is in the West Coast.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

And then it started defelling through the mill. I know uh the state of Michigan has a large interest in using uh engineered timber products because of their dense forests and the supply that they have uh similar with Wisconsin Minnesota um some of the Great Lake states uh we get up to New England it's a similar interest a lot of the projects we're looking at are in uh Maine New York New Hampshire coming down into Pennsylvania Virginia um states that have a lot of history with with timber and timber products um and the people that that live there are interested in timber bills based on what you know your firefighting background your work with um the ascent what advice would you give to developers that are going into markets that maybe are not as uh up to speed or comfortable with mass timber yet like what what would you say are the best practices to make sure that everybody's like meeting each other's needs that concerns are taken care of and that buildings actually get built move forward?

SPEAKER_02 41:41

Yeah I guess multiprong I would I would first uh you know invite the fire department uh right away you know as you guys proposing these buildings to municipalities um you know I I understand the concern and the trepidation of you know bringing the you know fire marshals and building and code enforcement officials in um because historically yeah they might have been poo-pooed in the the past and you know shut down um you know and I I was recently you know in a meeting um with some industry experts and uh one individual said well you know sometimes you know fire chiefs and whatnot think they're the smartest in the room and I you know I was a little off put by that comment initially but then I realized no I mean he's you know probably used to a lot of these projects being scrutinized maybe overscrutinized and you know based on a lack of awareness or understanding or empiricism of these these this construction um we're not there to be the smartest people in the room you know our job is not to stand in the way of economic development our job is to make sure the codes are enforced we know what these buildings are how you're building them you know where the fire pumps are um fire department connections and whatnot um so really we just want to be as informed as you know everyone else in the project and um uh again we're not the smartest people in the room but you know we're you also can't fool us so uh we we do know codes we do know uh how most buildings are built and you know we we like to know how the rest are so uh in addition you know you know contact some you know municipalities that have these structures and talk to their code enforcement officials and also look at the ATF and you know you all research on you know mass timber and the ATF you know fire testing was I think uh you know seminal research into the you know how these buildings behave under fire conditions and um you know the forest product labs testing and I mean in the manufacturers testing I mean obviously everyone burns their own wood and and see how it behaves and and you know bring all those uh all those metrics to the meeting initially to say here's the you know the materials we're using here's the panels here's how they behave here's the the testing we've done and whatnot I mean uh you'll have all that to talk about and look at um you know explain that you are not going To have to, you know, 99% of the time you are not going to have to alter your firefighting operations to begin fighting fires in these buildings. You know, it's going to behave similarly and/or better in some situations than a typical type one. I'm talking toomass timber, you know, um, based on variances and a lot of the stuff the fire department's gonna have to say yes to. And um, you know, the fire departments are we're just part of the AHJ consensus. You know, we're not, you know, most of us aren't fire protection engineers, um, but you know, we understand you know what's required in the in these types of buildings uh based on IBC and code enforcement. So we're not gatekeepers, you know. You know, we can be convinced that these buildings are safe. Just show us, and um, you know, we'll understand. Um like I said, the fire service is a little slow to kind of catch up on best practices on building construction. Um you know, you can correlate it to you know some you know, type four legacy building fires that they've had in their uh regions and you know, explain to them uh it'll behave the fire will behave better in those buildings because a lot of those buildings weren't sprinkler. Um, if they were, they had these monster deluge systems, and you know, that was up to the fire department to pump into newer buildings will have sprinklers every inch and you know, fire pumps and you know, a lot of active fire suppression. Um cast in place concrete stairs that the legacy you know type four buildings didn't have. So all the things firefighters want in a building. So if you kind of explain that to them, uh keep them involved, let them come do site visits, check the building out, not just to you know, kind of like do one of these to make sure you know there's no rubbish in the stale or anything like that, but you know, to show them how they're built, to show them the what exposed mass timber looks like and how big these these uh columns and beams are. Um like I said in the beginning of our talk, I mean our firefighters didn't gripe at all and say they stepped onto one of the floors of the ascent. They just looked around and it's just beautiful wood everywhere and monstrous you know, surface area um of this wood. And you know, one of the questions I would ask is how much, you know, how much fire do you think it would take to wipe out one of these floors? And we're like all the fire, right? So um, and that's how you convince firefighters. And um, you know, word of mouth, you know, our conferences, our lectures, and kind of our peer review journals are I believe are gonna start giving Mass Timber a fair shake in the near future. Um, and that in turn will will give developers a fair shake as well. Mason, would you add anything to that?

SPEAKER_01 46:33

I echo a lot of what Derek said there. Um something that a lot of times fire departments find themselves being stuck in is what is the developer gonna dump on us and make us have to deal with for the next 15, 20, 30, 50 years that this building is here. You know, as a design team, as an engineer, um this this building might be a season of a project for me, right? And then I'm on to the next thing. Same with the architect. Um, the developers that don't build and then hold, the ones that uh build and flip, right? It's a season, it's a it's a moment in time for them in their journey where the fire department's left dealing with whatever is built until the building's no longer there. And that's been a lot of the concern, and Eric alluded to that, where when fire department's brought in at the end of the game, it don't have a lot of say. It's not a very uh collaborative relationship. And if you can bring the fire department in early, um, involve them in design, talk through and alleviate their concerns before dollars start moving, before shovels start digging in the ground, and keep them involved as the building's built, that that goes uh miles in developing confidence in our relationship that this building is NBC. Got it.

SPEAKER_02 47:47

Yeah, and if I could add what add one more thing, kind of you know, Billy, when you say you brought up a good point. I mean, you know, we just don't like being surprised. I mean, you look at you know, some of the you know tragic fires we've had, Grenfell in the UK. Um, you know, they had essentially styrene foam, you know, exterior um curtain walls put on this thing. And you know, what that does in the recent uh fire in Hong Kong where they had bamboo you know you know exterior aesthetics on it, um, that is what's going to um cause issues for firefighters, not necessarily how the building is put together or constructed. So um, and those are the you know the things that we really worry about and you know as mass timbered you know ages uh in the industry, I think you know that's really going to be the focus is how are you sealing these things and you know what are you putting on the outside of them or or interior cores or whatnot. So um yeah, we just like you know being surprised by something cute the developer wants to do, so to speak. So um yeah, I think you I think Mason nailed it.

SPEAKER_00 48:47

Is there anything that we haven't talked about yet that you want to make sure that we do? I think so.

SPEAKER_01 48:51

We talked about a lot of good stuff here.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

Great. Thanks for being here with me today, guys. I appreciate you guys each sharing your perspective on fire and mass timber, um, how the design and construction teams are coming together with fire officials. Um, I appreciate you guys being here, and uh, I'm sure that we'll be talking with you guys again uh in the near future.