Setting up a small construction site is a big event for any business. But from the fence to the fire extinguisher trolley, there are any number of hidden expenses and scheduling issues you'll need to deal with when you're setting up a site for a small construction project.
Construction fencing is one of the major investments you'll need to make, and an easy investment to overlook when...
A fireproof door and an arc light were the culprits in one of history's greatest cautionary tale about fire safety: the Iroquois Theater Fire. There are more famous stories about fires, true: Mrs. O'Leary's Cow comes to mind, as well as the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in New York. But there isn't another story that goes in such detail into how, exactly, measures of fire safety and fire control...
"A more wretched hive of scum and villainy you will never find," said Sir Alec Guiness about the massively urban spaceport in Star Wars. The same could be said of virtually any major city, and if you live in a major city, you've got to be concerned with burglaries. Here are some tools for beating big-city burglars, assuming that you have a good fire escape ladder and some common sense.
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If Huck Finn and Jim had thought to carry foam extinguishers with them in their classic flight down the Mississippi, they might well have had an easier time of everything. That's what Disneyland employees learned one morning when a raft on their classic "Tom Sawyer Island" attraction burst into flames.
It's a well-known urban legend that no one has ever died at Disneyland. The legend is...
Are fire safety signs beautiful? Or are they the kinds of things people simply don't notice? Or are they possibly an opportunity for unique creative expression?
The work of Leon Reid IV (alias Darius Jones, alias VERBS) raises these questions and more. Reid's long career as a graffiti/street artist in the United States and the UK has raised consciousness about the constant presence in...
Mains smoke alarms are now common in modern buildings. In fact, most American building codes now require mains smoke alarms as part of their safety policies. It's a triumph for personal fire safety--and occasionally, it's a headache.
I found out why early one morning when I was working on a lengthy writing assignment. It was around three: my roommates had long ago gone to bed and I was...
Ray Bradbury's seminal book Farenheit 451 is known, above all, for its warped vision of a future fire brigade. The firefighters in Bradbury's book are assigned not to put out fires, but to start theme's specifically, to burn books. One of the most chilling moments in the story is to see the main character reading information about the history of the fire department, established to "burn...
Fire fighting, especially in recent times, has gotten a reputation as one of the most romantic and noble professions anyone could commit himself to. And it's by no means a new phenomenon: the romance of battling the flames was central to the success of the 1991 Ron Howard film, Backdraft. But how well does the fakery of fire fighters' lives stand up to the reality?
The answer: not well at...
This summer, the must-see film for UK children of all ages will be Disney Pixar's new film, "Wall-E". This animated masterpiece is the charming story of Wall-E, the last robot left clearing up the Earth's accumulated rubbish long after the last humans have cut and run. Even after 700 years of scooping and crushing endless heaps of discarded trash, Wall-E is curious about the items he finds in...
You've seen intumescent coatings, even if you don't think you have. Modern buildings with exposed steel frameworks are usually coated with the high-sheen fire-retardant coatings in order to stop fires quickly and prevent too much damage from being done to the underlying steel. But what does this practical approach to fire fighting mean for modern design sensibilities?
It's almost a given...
