Citation

Clarke FB. Fire Mater. 1999; 23(3): 109-116.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Addition of halogen-containing flame retardants to reduce ignitability and flame spread is presumed to increase both the quantity of smoke produced and the toxicity of the fire effluent. In the case of brominated flame retardants (BFRs), this does not appear to be the case. This work is a re-examination of the results of an earlier series of experiments carried out at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards (now NIST), in which product pairs were studied, one product in each pair was treated with a BFR and one was not. Comparative hazard analysis, using information not available to the original investigators, shows that, for the products under study, all three aspects of hazard - heat, smoke obscuration and fire effluent toxicity - are either reduced or unaffected by the action of the brominated agents. In particular, hydrogen bromide, a component of the fire effluent when brominated agents are present, was shown to be unimportant in the toxic hazard of full-scale fires involving BFR-treated products.