Fire, Materials and Design
The fire started around 7:30 pm in a small disused kiosk adjacent to the centre's mini-golf course, caused by boys who were smoking there. Eventually the burning kiosk slumped against the exterior of the building. This part of the building was clad in a material called Galbestos – profiled steel sheeting with asbestos felt on both sides coated with bitumen – which had limited fire-resistance qualities. This set fire to the interior sound-proofing material, which also had poor fire-resistance qualities, causing an explosion which ignited the highly flammable acrylic sheeting which covered the rest of the building. The fire spread quickly across the sheeting on the leisure centre walls and roof, and through vents which were not properly fireproofed. The acrylic melted, which allowed more oxygen to enter and dropped burning melted material, both starting other fires and injuring those trying to escape. The building's open-plan design included many unblocked internal spaces that acted as chimneys adding to the conflagration.
Read more about this topic: Summerland Disaster
Famous quotes containing the words materials and/or design:
“Young children learn in a different manner from that of older children and adults, yet we can teach them many things if we adapt our materials and mode of instruction to their level of ability. But we miseducate young children when we assume that their learning abilities are comparable to those of older children and that they can be taught with materials and with the same instructional procedures appropriate to school-age children.”
—David Elkind (20th century)
“With wonderful art he grinds into paint for his picture all his moods and experiences, so that all his forces may be brought to the encounter. Apparently writing without a particular design or responsibility, setting down his soliloquies from time to time, taking advantage of all his humors, when at length the hour comes to declare himself, he puts down in plain English, without quotation marks, what he, Thomas Carlyle, is ready to defend in the face of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)