Americas Holocaust

Americas Holocaust

Americas Holocaust - Report 1: Betrayal

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By Richard M Patton

Fire Protection Engineer

AMERICA’S HOLOCAUST Report No1

BETRAYAL It has been incredibly deadly and deviously concealed. It is the calculated and criminal destruction of lives and property by fire. It could be classified as the work of the ultimate arsonist. But it is really the works of those we trusted to protect us. It is perhaps the deadliest betrayal in American history. THE ENORMITY OF FIRE To comprehend the enormity of the betrayal, first the public must realize the magnitude of the destruction. Here is how a federal agency describes it: “The U.S. fire problem, on a per capita basis, is one of the worst in the industrial world. To put this in context, the annual losses from floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and other natural disasters combined in the United States average just a fraction of those from fires.” Fire in the United States’, 13th Edition, Federal Emergency Management Agency Page 1, Oct 2004

Perhaps the single most important thing that the public can be taught regarding the threat of fire to human life in America is this: There are two “catagories” of people that fire impacts. They are; Category 1: The victims. Category 2: Those who profit from fire or otherwise benefit from fire. THE REGULATORS ARE THE KILLERS The fundamental cause of most fire deaths in the United States over the past one hundred plus years was corruption within the fire regulatory system. Speaking plainly, human life has been secondary to the profits from fire. Two organizations at the heart of the fire regulatory system, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and Underwriters’ Laboratories (UL) have betrayed the public and are largely responsible for the hundreds of thousands of fire deaths and injuries over the past decades. And yes, I realize that this claim will be met with cries of indignation by the majority of those who work within the fire services and businesses of fire. But, for all those who question the premise of this report, all that is needed for the awful truth to emerge is to go to this web site: www.TheWorldFireSafetyFoundation.org. Go there and you will find the answers to why defective, indeed phony, smoke detectors have been installed within at least 80 million homes in the United States and millions more overseas. Those who will falsify research, advertise performance lies year after year, promote defective devices to be installed in a baby’s nursery and hide the real causes of the fire deaths even as the children are being buried, have a mentality that can justify anything.

Americas Holocaust - Report 1: Betrayal

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A NEAR 100 PERCENT SOLUTION TO FIRE DENIED A report by T Seddon Duke, President of Star Sprinkler Corporation, dated 1959, is attached. Duke cited the performance data regarding an electrically supervised sprinkler system. A supervised system will automatically send a signal to a nearby fire department, usually via a privately operated central monitoring station. The reliability of a monitored sprinkler was 99.86 percent. What this means

is that there was a solution to the fire problem within buildings that was extremely close to a 100 percent guarantee of fire control and no fire deaths. Consider that! If a cure for cancer was discovered by medical scientists and then a decision was made to severely ration that solution, allowing it to be applied to perhaps only two percent of those who needed it, would that be any worse than preventing the public access to the 99.86 percent cure for fire? Would those medical people who denied the cancer cure to the public be any less evil than those who erected code barriers to the installation of sprinklers? The bottom line is that almost every fire death and injury that has occurred for many decades, both before and after 1959, could have been easily prevented. But corrupt organizations and people that you trusted prevented it. ORGANIZED CORRUPTION BEGAN WITH THE NFPA I would put the date of birth of an organized and cleverly structured criminalization of the fire regulatory system as 1895. That was when a group of New England insurance organizations created the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). The National Fire Protection Association has grown to become known as the most important fire safety organization in the world. As such, it is considered by most fire safety professional to be beyond criticism. Hence, it may not be easy to convince the public that nearly all fire deaths and destruction occurring in America today, and much of it in foreign nations, is the end result of this organization. However, I say that the NFPA has majored in betrayal and I have the evidence to confirm that conclusion. Indeed, if it were not for the corruption the fire problem would not be causing more damage than the floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters. INSURERS NEEDED FIRE LOSSES So that the reader will understand the ways that the regulatory system was corrupted I will explain how and why the NFPA was first created, how it increased its powers and how it attracted thousands of businesses that profited from fire to help them do their dirty work. The New England fire insurers founded the NFPA to create codes, which were then enacted into laws by city and state legislation. But, the primary interest of the insurers was to profit from fire, not to eliminate fire. Fire was and is the business of the fire insurers. Without fire there would be no fire insurers. The public, however, does not need fires and would not need fire insurance except there are fires. Fire is good to the insurers, but very bad for the public.

Americas Holocaust - Report 1: Betrayal

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INSURERS HAD A SURE THING Small properties such as homes could be insured knowing that only so many would burn each year. Home insurance was not that different from life insurance; actuarial tables quite accurately predicted the number of deaths/ homes that would burn each year. Therefore the annual loss could be calculated by the underwriters. All that was needed was to mathematically calculate the expected total loss and set the rates so that for every dollar “out” to pay losses perhaps two dollars coming “in” would be about right. It was a neat business, the insurers were a money transfer operation; transferring money from all the insured to those who suffered losses. For every dollar into the insuring system the rating of the underwriters guaranteed that fewer dollars would flow out. The insurers also had some special strategies for protecting their businesses. They excluded coverage for losses that could be of a catastrophic nature. For example, a flood could simultaneously destroy many thousands of homes. A loss that large could bankrupt insurers. So risks that could result in catastrophic losses were excluded. That’s the same concept as a casino setting the maximum size of a wager. As further protection, the insurers created reinsurance markets so that a portion of the coverage on an extremely high valued property could be passed on to others. This allowed a company of limited capacity to insure a property of any size and spread share the risk with others.

Incidentally, I helped Seagram Distillers create a captive insurance company in the Bahamas and I twice traveled to London to help negotiate reinsurance markets with Lloyds for the captive. CATASTROPHIC LOSSES WERE A THREAT TO INSURERS During the late 18th century as the industrial revolution progressed, the factories and industrial operations grew in size and complexity with that new and dangerous tool called electricity. Electricity made manpower increasingly productive. But it also introduced fire hazardous conditions never before experienced. The 1800 category industrial plants not only burned, they burned much too frequently. And, what the insurers were ill prepared to cope with was that the loss of but one segment of an industrial operation could stop the entire production for up to a year or longer. Lose a bottling facility, for example, and it could require many months to build a new bottling building and get delivery of the necessary machinery. The replacement cost for the building and machinery might be five million dollars but the loss of sales during the non productive period might be 50 million dollars. The insurers were in big trouble. If they set the rates sky high, the plant managers could not afford insurance. If the rates were lowered the insurers faced the risk of loss payouts exceeding the premiums. The plant managers also had a problem. They did not want compensation for a burned out plant, they wanted to continue to manufacture and make profits. WHEN ONE GALLON IS BETTER THAN A HUNDRED THOUSAND American ingenuity always finds a solution when one is needed. The solution to the large industrial property fire risk was the fire sprinkler system. The industrialists discovered that when sprinkler systems were installed their properties did not burn. Sure fires continued to occur, but no sooner than the fire grew large enough to put about 200 degrees F. at the ceiling, water spray came from above. Fire has a nemeses and it is water spray. When water is applied to a fire in hundreds of thousands of small droplets the heat absorption is amazing. As a general rule fire will not burn at low temperature. Low temperature for a fire may be 500 degrees F. Water changes to steam at 212 degrees. Hence, when water meets fire, fire dies. One gallon of water promptly applied manually by a fog nozzle or 5 gallons by automatic sprinkler may equal a hundred thousand gallons of water if fire has an extra five minutes to grow. Putting it another way, if gallons are the measure, a sprinkler in the ceiling is a hundred times more efficient than a firefighter located in a firehouse a mile or ten away. WITHIN THE BUILDING PROTECTION WAS THE SOLUTION By the end of the 19th century the fire insurance system was advancing to the point where the fire risk of a property could be reduced by 99 percent simply by installing some pipe at the ceiling and installing sprinkler heads perhaps 10 feet apart. Unfortunately for the insurance underwriters, the fire sprinkler system was becoming so efficient there was a danger that the “within-the-building” solution to fire had the potential to eliminate the fire problem altogether. This would be bad news for the insurers, for the firefighters and for thousands of other businesses that sold fire related products, including fire rated construction materials. Fire was a monster creator of profits and government expenditures. The possible elimination of fire was a fearful idea for those who profited from fire.

Americas Holocaust - Report 1: Betrayal

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INDUSTRIALISTS BYPASSED THE INSURERS The industrialists began to benefit very well from the sprinkler technology. Although a fire in a sprinklered building might cause some minor damage, to an industrial operation that was no worry. So, the property managers began to wonder why they should continue to pay the profit making insurers for

protecting them from the dramatically reduced potential for loss when sprinklers were installed. The wily plant owners began to form their own insurance cooperatives called Mutuals. The idea was that all members of a mutual insurer would pay a modest fee into the kitty at the beginning of the insuring year. Then after the small payouts for small losses, if any, the kitty would be divided up at the end of the insuring year. This plan had the potential to reduce the cost of insurance from say $10.00 per one hundred dollars of insured value to below 10 cents per hundred dollars of value. The savings were often in the fantastic range. SPRINKLERS WERE A THREAT TO THE PROFITS So, the new problem the insurers faced at the end of the 19th century was that the early fire sprinkler system was too darn effective, even in its existing crude stage of development. No doubt, the Underwriters were complaining to each other, God help us if they make that system any better. Without fires there would be no fire insurance. And what really gave the underwriter sleepless nights was the possibility that the system that was designed to protect the large industrial properties would be redesigned to protect buildings of all sizes and all occupancies. If the public began to consider the sprinkler system as a “protector of human life” there would be enormous pressure to redesign it to protect homes, hospitals, schools, hotels and buildings of like kind. I’ll say this about the insurers; they can recognize a risk to their profits when they see one. THE ANTI-SPRINKLER CAMPAIGN The clever underwriters in New England, where the industrial plants were largely located, came up with a plan. Form an organization that would create a standard for sprinkler system design. Call it the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). Create a code for the design of the sprinkler system that would lock the system into huge water demands, large steel pipe mainly in the 6 inch to 10 inch sizes and include other restrictions so that it would be economically impossible to use that system to protect small properties (say homes) and compartmented properties (say hotels, schools, apartment houses, hospitals, high rise office buildings and virtually all non-factory buildings where a fire could occur). Also, the insurers concluded that the public must be educated to know that fire sprinklers were for property protection only. Tell the people that the smoke would kill the occupants before the sprinkler opened. Tell the people that the water would create steam and the occupants would be scalded on the way to the exits. Convince all building owners that the water damage would be greater than the fire damage. Especially convince the architects and builders that sprinkler systems were much too ugly to be installed in pretty buildings. Of course, the NFPA created code, dominated by representatives of the insurance industry; guarantee that the installed sprinklers system would be as ugly as sin. Nearly everyone believed that the insurance agents were the fire experts and that what they said was the truth.

Americas Holocaust - Report 1: Betrayal

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NFPA BETRAYED THE PEOPLE Not surprisingly, the NFPA Sprinkler code was specifically oriented to prevent the installation of sprinklers within those buildings that constituted the main profit areas of the insurers, especially the family dwelling. The dwellings were numerous (desirable spread of risk), very profitable and the home owner had no political power or savvy of insurance schemes. The home owner was ripe for the plucking and therefore, under no circumstances, would affordable and reliable sprinklers systems be allowed in homes. As stated, the system was promoted as a protector of property only, not pertinent for protecting lives. Therefore, preventing sprinklers from being installed in homes was not considered to be murder by omission because, after all, “sprinklers would not protect life” (or so the logic went). This logic was

indoctrinated into fire department officials, who were not technical people. Therefore fire officials believed what the NFPA/UL “technical experts” were telling them. SPRINKLER TECHNOLOGY DORMANT FOR 70 YEARS The insurers also established Underwriters’ Laboratories to create laboratory testing standards for sprinklers. UL eagerly joined the NFPA operation of preventing the evolution of sprinklers to protect dwellings, apartment buildings and compartmented buildings. By creating standards and test programs that prevented innovation, the status quo prevailed. Virtually no significant change occurred in sprinkler system design and application for a period of about 70 years. Only after I forced change did any change occur, and even then the change was the minimum that they could get away with. STRATEGIES TO PREVENT SPRINKLERS FOR LIFE SAFETY Here is one example among the hundreds of how the UL testing and certification procedures for sprinklers locked the system into restrictions that prevented change and advancements that would allow a more universal application of the protective system. On pages 22 and 23 of the UL standard for “Automatic Sprinklers for Fire-Protection Service” the spray pattern for the sprinkler was defined. Regulation Number 109 on page 23 stated that “the water distribution pattern for a standard sprinkler shall not exceed a 16-foot diameter circular area 4 feet below the sprinkler deflector.” This limited the size of the area that could be wetted by one sprinkler. If a sprinkler was designed to cover a wider area it would not pass the UL test program. This restriction on the area of coverage justified the NFPA Sprinkler Code No. 13 limitation on the size of a room to be covered by one sprinkler to 15 by 15 feet. Thus, if a room was 16 by 16 feet, four sprinklers would be required at nearly four times the cost. Anyone who examines the configuration of hotels, motels, and similar compartmented buildings will discover this rule represented an enormously excessive cost to protect compartmented buildings including homes. And this was but one improper restriction among a great many. During the 1960s my research proved that a 20 by 20 foot room could be better protected (with higher orifice pressure and an improved density and distribution) than the narrow pattern sprinkler would protect a lesser sized room. Another of the many regulations aimed at magnifying the sprinkler installation costs was the requirement that a sprinkler in a closet would be required to discharge the same amount of water as a sprinkler covering 225 square feet of room space. That is why I was able to reduce installation costs by as much as 90 percent with hydraulic engineering and common sense.

Americas Holocaust - Report 1: Betrayal

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A 90 PERCENT REDUCTION IN SPRINKLER COSTS As an example of how devious the NFPA/UL regulations were (and mainly still are) I cite the Kansas City, Kansas hospital where I designed a Life Safety Sprinkler System covering 1.2 million square feet. An NFPA design system for the basement only was bid at $2.88 per square feet. At the time usually only basements in hospitals were sprinklered because such fires were unusually dangerous for firefighters. (Unfortunately, the same logic, that it is extremely dangerous to be on floors above a fire in a high rise was not applied to the tenants on the upper floors of high rises.) I was contacted by the hospital design team because it was discovered, after construction started, that there would be a ten million dollar cost over-run. I designed a life safety system for the entire hospital that was then bid by a sprinkler contractor for approximately 35 cents a square foot, about a 90 percent cost reduction per foot from the NFPA design. Then, because the entire hospital would be sprinkler protected the required fireproofing was reduced from four hours to three and the total cost of the entire hospital was reduced by more than 5 million dollars. The truth is that proper engineering of the sprinkler system is accomplished, not only will

the price of the protective system drop dramatically but the entire cost of construction can be reduced by 10 percent and more. FIRE ENGINEERS HELP NFPA RESTRICT SPRINKLERS After I designed the Kansas City hospital system and the results were so positive, I believed that my fellow fire protection engineers would flock to my support and demand that better engineered systems be allowed everywhere. However, the cost reduction for the system, and especially the dramatic reduction in construction costs had the opposite effect. Reduced costs were not what the people who controlled the codes wanted. They wanted maximum profits from the fire problem. And the engineers knew where the money was. The engineering association I belonged to, the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE) would not even publish the article written by me and the State Architect of Kansas. Finally, the American Hospital Association covered the story in their Hospitals magazine. This illustrates the seriousness of the conflict between those who profit from fire (and create codes to magnify their profits) on the one hand and the desire to protect life from fire on the other hand. The full story of the Kansas City Hospital installation, as published in the Hospitals magazine dated February 1, 1977 is available upon request. KILL FIRE QUICK OR IT WILL KILL YOU Fire is like a tiger. When first born it cannot kill and it is easy to kill it. However, allow that tiger/ fire to grow large and then it is hard to kill, but easy for it to kill you. The growth time for a fire in a building that initiates flaming (as opposed to smoldering) is often only four or five minutes. Then it becomes a quick and ferocious killer. Thus, when fire starts, apply water spray to it within the first three or four minutes, preferably the first two minutes, or watch out - it will get you. Now compare the time to apply water by sprinkler vs. the firefighter. The fire services usually claim that the “response time” is five minutes or less. But that is from the time of the alarm sounding at the station until the first truck reaches the immediate area of the burning property. The real time for a rescue of someone trapped within, however, is from the first flicker of flame until discovery, the phone call to 911, the relay to the nearby station, the travel time, waiting for the train to pass, the locating of the hydrant, the laying out and charging of the hose lines and the entry of the building behind the protection of the water fog. That true “rescue time” is more like ten minutes to a half hour or more.

Americas Holocaust - Report 1: Betrayal

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MAKING SURE OCCUPANTS DO NOT USE WATER ON FIRE The above comparison of the time of fire’s growth and the value of within-the-home protective systems is an explanation of why the “fire experts” immediately set out to kill the first residential fire detection code ever published. I was the chairman that first ever code to protect life in a home. We recommended that the extremely reliable heat detectors be installed in every room with a few smoke detectors as the secondary protection. There was good reason to do so. The fact is that the great majority of fire deaths are caused by flaming fires, not smoldering fires. Contrary information was later disseminated to justify the removal of the heat detectors from the code so that the phony smoke detector would be the only protection promoted for the home. This would further guarantee that a high percentage of home fires would not be controlled by the occupants; thus the services of the remote firefighters would be required. If the occupants of a home were protected with a fire detection system as reliable as the sprinkler system, and if there was a small hose with fog nozzle at the ready, an alerted occupant would be able to grab the hose, open the quick opening valve and apply water spray probably in less than two minutes of the first flame appearing. Spray aimed directly at a small fire could be even more efficient than spray from a ceiling sprinkler. Spray nozzles are certified as safe for firefighters on equipment at voltages

as high as a hundred thousand and more. So they can be used in a home. But, for decades the home occupants have been advised that water spray cannot be used in a home because of the 110 volt power. FEDERAL RESEARCH FALSIFIED TO SELL DEFECTIVE DETECTORS This combination automatic-manual protective system could be almost as reliable as a fully automatic sprinkler system, and far easier to install in an already constructed home. So, this threat to the status quo was swiftly attacked. Incredibly corrupt “research”, financed by the federal government but with a UL engineer in charge was rigged to provide the desired answers. Although the ionization type smoke detector proved to be incredibly unreliable during the testing, the engineers filled the report with technical inaccuracies and outright lies. These blatant falsifications of a federal research project “justified” the elimination of the reliable detectors (heat detectors) and the substitution of a phony “smoke” detector that is not capable of detecting real (visible) smoke. Yes, NFPA/UL traded a reliable fire detection system that would have dramatically reduced fire deaths in already constructed homes, for a “smoke” detector that doesn’t detect smoke. Anyone who believes the ionization device is not a fraud and a killer need only go to the web site of the World Fire Safety Foundation and the truth will become apparent. THE NFPA/UL COMBINE CONTROLS THE MARKETS The NFPA/UL regulatory system learned well from the insurance executives. The insurers taught them how to structure codes and certifications to gain control of the markets. Both the insurers and the fire inspectors were enforcing the NFPA codes and checking manufactured products and systems for UL labels, and declaring the non compliers as being unsatisfactory and dangerous. In time it became impossible to sell products and systems within the American marketplace without the approvals of the controllers. American businessmen found they had to cooperate with the controllers or their wares would not sell. And those that won the certifications early found that often they could prevent competitors from gaining the certifications, thus limiting competition. A better system or product that would especially reduce fire losses had a particularly difficult time gaining approvals. An example was the use of copper or plastic piped for sprinklers and better engineered systems. These non-government regulations that became laws provided the NFPA /UL enormous powers. Those businesses that placed their representatives on the NFPA code writing committees and were also able to help define the UL testing procedures could structure a market to benefit their own wares. But the people suffered greatly.

Americas Holocaust - Report 1: Betrayal

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HOMES PRODUCE 95 PERCENT OF THE FIRE DEATHS When one examines the fire codes and policies of the fire regulatory system, it becomes apparent that the primary orientation has been to fight huge out-of-control fires with massive equipment, a great abundance of manpower, enormously costly equipment and ungodly amounts of water. Control of the early fire has received almost concern and the best manual fire control tool, a small hose with spray nozzle has essentially been barred from the marketplace. Code restrictions have kept at least 99 percent of homes, where 95 percent of the building fire caused deaths occur, devoid of sprinklers. Instead of a real effort to detect and control the early fire, the NFPA has disseminated gratuitous advice, much of it of an asinine nature such as promoting the idea that one can safely crawl out of a fire. Under many fire conditions the smoke is dense at the floor level and nonexistent at head height. Would it not have been a thousand times better to provide smoke detectors that are actually capable of detecting real (visible) smoke? With honest fire detectors in the home (smoke and heat) there would be ample warning so that the occupants could walk out instead of crawling out, or even put out the fire. To those who say that the

public would not purchase adequate protection; I say stop lying to the public, stop creating code barriers to the best protection, tell the people the truth and let them decide what they will buy. MURDER BY CODE This is my first report on America’s Holocaust. It has caused fire deaths and serious injuries into the millions and property damage beyond counting into the billions. The reality is that fire in America is probably a hundred times more deadly than it should be. I have mainly covered the beginning of the Holocaust and the roles of the NFPA/UL fire regulatory system, including the ways by which the fire sprinkler system and a reliable fire detection system for homes were prevented from developing as affordable and universal systems for protecting human life. The primary method to guarantee a high burn rate in America was to prevent the development of “Within-The-Building” protective systems. The fire “experts” knew that so long as the fire suppression system was located a mile or ten away from where the fire originated, deadly fires would continue, and these deaths would intimidate the public and building owners to buy what was being sold, including but not limited to high priced insurance. Fire involves thousand of regulations and codes, hundreds of billions of dollars in sales and expenditures and an enormous panorama of products and systems “certified” by UL, at a price of course. Interestingly, the No. 1 fire starter in the home is UL “approved” products and systems. This report is but a piece of the whole. There is a holocaust happening in this country. It is a people manufactured HOLOCAUST. I say it is a massive level of murder by code. There’s more to come. EVIL WINS WHEN GOOD PEOPLE DO NOTHING.

www.TheWorldFireSafetyFoundation.org • www.Firecrusade.com

Americas Holocaust - Report 1: Betrayal

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RICHARD M. PATTON, FIRE PROTECTION ENGINEER AUTHOR, THE AMERICAN HOME IS A FIRE TRAP President of: THE CRUSADE AGAINST FIRE DEATHS, INC. POST OFFICE BOX 196 ● CITRUS HEIGHTS, CA 95611 PHONE 916 721 7700 • rmpa%[email protected]