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During the morning preparation period before the lunch crowd
rush, a fire started in the Chicken! Chicken! Restaurant in Burlingame,
CA. The fire quickly spread through the
building and destroyed two neighboring businesses resulting in a multimillion
dollar loss.
Working with architect Dennis Govan, AIA, and fire
investigator Russ Auker (Ron Hall & Associates), we created a detailed set
of as-built plans of the building, structure, restaurant, oven enclosure, oven
hood & fire suppression system, exhaust duct system, & supply duct
system. We located the origin of the
fire in the attic space above the oven enclosure. We also demonstrated that there were no
ignitions sources near the origin.
WCP&A then created a detailed combustion, heat transfer,
& fluid flow model of the oven and enclosure. Using this model, we demonstrated that the
ignition source was self-heating to ignition of the wood framing above the
oven. We demonstrated that the proximate
cause of the high temperatures that allows this self-heating to occur was
breakage of a fan belt to the exhaust duct fan.
We demonstrated that the design of the oven was not suitable for use
with a standard food-service-equipment hood or being framed into an enclosure;
this was a violation of a variety of codes and standards.
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