National Archives and Records Service film-vault fire at Suitland, Md. : hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives, Ninety-sixth Congress, first session, June 19 and 21, 1979 (1979)

147 Where the minority report with the GSA ooininitteo is ooncenied, as I read NFPA 40, quick-act in <ij sprinklers are not required. Smoke detectors would be of no sitjnificant benefit and possibly coidd be actuated too frequently and thus lead people to disbelieve tlie fire alarm. In other respects, the minority report touches on si^iificant items with which I have no disat>reement, such as tlie humidity controls, the unshielded lio;ht bulbs, and so forth. The National Fire Protection Standard No. 40 is the standard for the storage and handling of cellulose nitrate motion picture film. The standard requires, first, that archival vaults should not exceed 1,000 cubic feet. The vaults met this requirement. Second, when 8-inch-thick hollow masonry units are used, the face should be plastered on both sides with a cement plaster at least a halfinch thick if there are cracks or holes in the surface of the blocks. There has been no statement regarding the condition of the vault walls at Suitland. Third, the proximity of vent stacks to each other and to other sources of heat should be avoided. This was not the sitaution at Suitland. The radiated heat from a fire in one vault could affect adjacent vaults. Fourth, doors should be of a type suitable for use in Class B situations. That is, a 1 or li^^-hour situation. Two doors are required. I happen to be chairman of the National Fire Protection Association Committee on Fire Doors and Windows, and I should explain that a class B 1-hour door is one that has been subjected to a severe fire reaching 1,700° at the end of an hour. No through openings are supposed to develop, and the doors, then, are also supposed to withstand the onslaught of a 21/2-inch firehouse stream tending to batter away at the door. The standard would have called for two such doors, one on the inside, and one on the outside. A combination of two 1-hour doors is equivalent to something like 3 hours and 25 minutes. In place of that, we had a three-eighths-inch steel plate, difficult to open and that had to be lat<^hed manually. It also requires, in the standard, that the interior door be a sliding door arranged for automatic operation. There was no such door. The outer door should be self-closing or be arranged to be automatic closing and, of course, be automatic latching. The vault doors did not comply in any respect. I believe that insulated or low-heat transmitting doors should be used, but they are not specifically required in the standard. Fifth, the decomposition vent is required except when explosion vents are provided. There were no decomposition vents. The explosion vents were so tightly sealed with asbestos board blowout panels that no venting could occur to dissipate the decomposition gases. Sixth, the outlets of explosion vents are to be alx)ve the roof to dissipate the heat and gas. Where vents discharge horizontally, a deflector wall or other device should be provided to deflect the gases upward. This situation did not exist at Suitland, as you can tell by the pictures. The idea is that wdien these extreme flames come out, they are not supposed to give radiated heat into the adjoining vault. In California, we have a lot of multiple vaults. The vents all discharge vertically. We have not had a film fire go l^eyond one vault