Presenter: Cameron McCartney and Peter McBride

Commercial roofs with combustible components, such as foam insulation, can lead to complex fires that are challenging to control while keeping firefighters safe. Various tactics have been developed for fighting fires in combustible metal roof decks (CMRDs), including trenching, deck washing, and thermal decoupling. This session presents the results of full-scale experiments where these tactics were applied to three types of CMRDs during controlled fires. Temperature measurements throughout the roofs and visual observations were used to determine the relative benefits and challenges of each tactic, including deployment speed, required crew size, and effectiveness in preventing fire and smoke spread through roofs.