Walmart Distribution Center Fire 4

[OHIOMatt]

Link

As a structural engineer who has worked on similar structures, I have always assumed that this level of fire was a thing of the past in these types of structures. It will be interesting to see what comes out of the investigation and if this will lead to changes in the industry. These mega warehouses are popping up at a significant pace.

 

[JohnRBaker]

The OP didn't provide a link, so here's one:

https://www.wthr.com/article/news/l...nter/531-2f16d5ad-580f-4ad7-84ba-f24e9371f2e5

That;s not a fire, it's a conflagration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBUQFFWR2R4&t=63s

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[TugboatEng]

A large, non-compartmentalized structure with vertical stacks of cardboard and plastics, some containing lithium batteries? I'm surprised this isn't a regular occurrence.

 

[JohnRBaker]

But where's the sprinkler system?

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[OHIOMatt]

This image was take from the Indy Star's Facebook page.

 

[EdStainless]

Unless it was a deluge system I can't see it denting this sort of fire.
I worked in a large manufacturing plant and we had partial wall panels hanging from the roof to try and compartmentalize the space.
We also had walls that dropped down in case of fire.
I guess that costs too much for a distribution center.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
P.E. Metallurgy, consulting work welcomed

 

[JohnRBaker]

Fire suppression, AKA sprinkler, systems are supposed to 'suppress' fires, meaning that they're designed to knock fires down before they get out of control.

Note that I was in an old grocery warehouse, that had been converted to a large commercial bakery, when the sprinkler system was triggered, and the amount of water coming out of just ONE sprinkler head was amazing.

The grocery company was setting up their own bakery operation and I was working for the company that had sold them a pie line, which including, among other things a 80 foot long (baking chamber), direct gas-fired tunnel oven, consisting of a moving hearth made of four inch wide x 1/4 inch thick x 13 foot (12'-4" effective baking area) long steel slats. The oven had about a 12-15 foot long discharge section before the machine that removed the pies from the hearth was located. Anyway, I was there as the representative from the engineering department to assist in the start-up and tuning process. We had just started to do our first full baking temperature test, setting up all of the ribbon burners (there was one about every 12 to 18 inches, extending across the width of the baking chamber), similar to the oven shown below except with a longer discharge section:

About an hour or so into the test, a sprinkler head directly over that long discharge section of the oven was triggered and we were drenched with ICE COLD water (it was February in East Hartford, CT) and it immediately turned to steam when the water hit that 400+ degree steel hearth. Until they got the water shut off, we grabbed anything that we could to try and keep the water from hitting those hot steel slats as we were worried that they could warp. They finally got the water turned off, about the time the firetrucks showed-up.

Anyway, what had happened was, as I stated, this was being used as a warehouse for groceries and they had forgotten to replace the low-temp sprinkler heads, suitable for normal dry goods and such, with higher-temp heads, suitable for a bakery operation.

And before anyone asks, NO I was NOT related to the founders of the company, which was going by the name Baker Perkins when I worked there (1966-1980), which was the American subsidiary, located in Saginaw, MI, of what was a British company, headquartered in Peterborough, England. While my family name is currently the same as was the name of one of the co-founders of the company, it was not spelled that way when my first paternal ancestor immigrated to America from Germany in 1850. It was spelled Becker until the family decided to change it to Baker during the Franco-Prussian war (there was a lot of anti-German sentiment in the country at the time and the family owned men's clothing stores in Toledo and Cleveland so it was done for business reasons).

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[Pud]

Still is a British company. Thought they sounded familiar, but no odea why. Thought they might have been owned by Electrolux who used to pay me at one time...


Politicians like to panic, they need activity. It is their substitute for achievement.

 

[TigerGuy]

As Tug points out, likely a few lithium batteries in there. How often is the fire suppression system updated to address the products being stored in this type of facility?

Hope everybody is safe at the end of this event. The building and merchandise can all be replaced, not the people.

 

[dik]

I think the purpose of sprinklers is to knock it down before it really gets up.

"Each sprinkler head operates independently; therefore only one or two may activate at the source of the fire. This contradicts what you may have seen depicted in movies. Additional heads will activate if needed to control the fire.

USING LESS WATER THAN FIRE HOSES
According to the Scottsdale Report, the average amount of water used by a fire sprinkler to control a fire is 341 gallons. The average amount used by firefighters with a hose from a fire hydrant is 2,935 gallons, almost 10 times as much. Without fire sprinklers, you may be looking at not only extensive fire damage, but also more extensive water damage. A study performed by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) found that property damage was reduced by 69 percent in fires where automatic fire sprinklers were in use."

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[JohnRBaker]

A sprinkler head might use less water, but when you're standing under one, trying to save a piece of expensive machinery, it feels like Niagara Falls.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[Cool_Controls]

If they sorted,picked and pulled orders in this facility, their would likely be serveral thousand polyethylene bins in use. Walmart also prefers that their vendors use HDPE pallets. In my experience the use of in rack sprinklers varies widely, not sure if Walmart had a corporate standard.

 

[meamin]

One of the exterior walls collapsed.

https://www.reddit.com/r/indianapol.../?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

 

[spsalso]

The fire started on "a third floor mezzanine", according to a reporter in the first link.

Are lithium batteries stored in third floor mezzanines?

How about polyethylene bins. Are they up on a third floor mezzanine?

HDPE pallets?

Usually, what is stored in third floor mezzanines is piles and piles of paper records that can't be gotten rid of.

"Ask me how I know."


spsalso

 

[TugboatEng]

Started on a third floor mezzanine may also mean first noticed on a third floor mezzanine. That is generally where one would first notice a fire. High above the source of heat where the smoke accumulates.

After years of working in engine rooms in the maritime industry, we always enter our place of work from the top. Anything hot and wrong is almost instantly noticed by smell upon entering the engine room. The next 4 hours of watch is spent trying to figure out where the alarming odor came from.

 

[Cool_Controls]

And I thought being a grave digger is the only job you start on top.

 

[JStephen]

There are a couple of tanks on the southwest side of the building, which are likely water tanks for a sprinkler system. (Per Google maps).
I see Google maps shows the facility as "temporarily closed".

 

[bones206]

Judging by the way the collapsing wall panels pancaked the semi-trailers parked outside, it is probably a concrete tilt-up wall with a metal deck roof. If I was a fire fighter I would loath this type of construction.

OHIOMatt - I vote in favor of adding more engineered fire protections to these warehouses. It seems like a reasonable enhancement for the building code. Perhaps also some new structural integrity requirements for fire, so the tilt-up panels can survive longer and not pose such a threat to firefighters. Maybe in conjunction with some enhanced integrity requirements for tornado? I suspect Wal-Mart, Amazon etc. can afford it, but will take a push by the industry to make it happen.

 

[EdStainless]

I am sure that insurance companies are looking at this long and hard.
After all they can enforce rules that others might find difficult.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
P.E. Metallurgy, consulting work welcomed

 

[LuK13]

I was a sprinkler designer in a past life. Storage is a nightmare, and its not because of the code, its the owners that make it damn near impossible sometime.

First, sprinkler systems are designed to suppress a fire so that occupants can get out and the local fire department can respond. That being said, a number of fires are controlled or suppressed by a single sprinkler head.

Second, design requirements are well codified by NFPA and additional recommendations are available in the FM Global Data Sheets, all informed by actual losses in the field. For larger facilities like this it is not unheard of for the insurance company to require compliance with FM Data Sheets or internal standards that go above and beyond code minimum.

Problem is everything is based on a design fire. I only know what the owner tells me is going to be stored there. After the CO is granted who the hell knows if the owner is going to be aware that a change in use invalidates my original design? Also a lot of the storage designs are based on strict layouts with aisles and shelving dimensions to avoid obstructing sprinkler sprays. I cant walk into a local tire shop without seeing tires stacked in the aisles, which are marked with paint for a reason... And the design densities for rubber storage are pretty hefty since depending on how you stack tires there is a lot of shielded space for a fire to grow. Also regularly see tires stacked in a manner that don't match the approved methods in the figures in the code, but I doubt anyone working in the tire shop even knows what NFPA is.

Then there is always the fire where the last tech to touch the system left the control valve on the water supply off, rendering the system useless.

The answer isn't more stringent design codes, its more stringent enforcement of the assumptions that the design codes are based on.