NORTH KINGSTOWN -- Steve Beck had so much confidence in the flame resistance of his company's special paint that he scheduled "the ultimate test" yesterday and invited many of the state's top fire officials to watch.
"After 10 years of research and development, we're fully confident this product is the newest step in fire technology since the advent of sprinklers," Beck said as North Kingstown firefighters donned their gear.
Behind Beck stood two wooden boxes, each the size of a typical bedroom. He planned to start fires in each, he said. One would flashover in minutes; the other would probably go out, he said, because the walls were painted with "Firefree 88."
He had done this same test all over the country, Beck said, and each time the paint won.
But this time, to give the demonstration a Rhode Island spin, Beck lined both rooms with inch-and-a-half polyurethane foam, the same fuel that fed The Station fire, which claimed 100 victims last February.
"It's just about the most combustible material you can find," said Beck, president of International Fire Resistant Systems Inc., of San Rafael, Calif. He had never used foam before, he said, but he said he was confident his paint would work. It always did.
The crowd stared as the fires were lighted. No one said a word.
Within seconds, flames filled the untreated room, swirled out the door and gave off a tall column of black smoke.
The treated room remained still. Viewers had to move around to see the small fire in the back corner.
At 60 seconds, flames soared 20 feet above the untreated room. Sheets of plasterboard crashed to the floor.
The treated room remained incredibly still.
But at 90 seconds, things started going wrong.
Gray smoke poured from the treated room. Then it turned black. Then flames engulfed the doorway.
At two minutes, the two rooms looked the same -- charred wood pumping swirling clouds of flame and smoke into the sky.
Beck and his associates looked stricken.
They planned a news conference after the fire, but that didn't happen. They kept staring at the fire and talked to each other.
As firefighters extinguished the inferno, Beck lit a propane torch and aimed it at a piece of cardboard treated with Firefree 88.
He showed anyone who would look how the paint easily stands up to the propane flame.
When pressed about the bigger fire, Beck shrugged.
"It's a live test. We pushed it to the limit. We pushed it slightly over the limit," he said.
"Even with that," he added, "it gave people time to get out."
The company has done similar comparison tests all over the country. In every previous test, the small fire in the treated room would simply go out. But the company had never performed a test with this particular kind of foam, which was the most flammable they could find.
Beck and John Simontacchi, the company's chief executive officer, appeared before the Rhode Island Fire Safety Code Board of Appeal and Review on Tuesday and showed videos of other fire tests that turned out much better.
They said they want state fire officials to consider letting building owners use the paint as an alternative to installing expensive sprinkler systems. Legislation passed following The Station fire requires many more businesses to install sprinklers in the next few years.
Beck said local businesspeople heard about Firefree 88 and asked the company to come to Rhode Island.
Firefree 88 is not cheap. The paint costs about $60 a gallon and each gallon covers only about 100 square feet. To be effective, it has to be applied thickly and evenly.
But it's still about 40 percent to 60 percent cheaper than sprinklers, Simontacchi said. It can be applied much quicker, and it's perfect for historic buildings where sprinklers are difficult to install.
Simontacchi said the company is planning to have technicians trained at the Community College of Rhode Island. Each job should be independently inspected, he added, to ensure it's done right. The company will warrant the paint.
Board members said they would wait to see the demonstration and to get a report from the state fire marshal's office before taking any action.
After the fires were extinguished yesterday morning, Beck and others inspected the two rooms.
In the untreated room, the foam was burned off and all the plasterboard fell to the floor, leaving charred joists and plywood.
In the treated room, most of the foam and plasterboard was still intact.
While the two fires looked similar, apparently most of the flames in the treated room had come from the floor and the doorway, which weren't treated.
The experiment proved one thing, said Thomas B. Coffey, executive director of the state's fire safety board. "In a fire like that, you need sprinklers."
William Howe, chief of inspections for the state fire marshal's office, agreed.
"It held for a while," he said. "But I don't see it, based on this test, as replacing sprinklers."
Beck was still shaking his head. "We've never experienced anything like this. It was just too big a fire load."
And nobody, he said, would line a room with polyurethane foam.
Except that's just what happened at The Station.
DIGITAL EXTRA: See what the company has to say about Firefree 88 paint, and view a video of previous test burns, at:
http://www.firefree.com
