Fire effects both old and new construction

With robust historical districts as well as several new developments, Cumberland County is an amalgamation of both classic and new construction.

When it comes to fire incidents, all these types of construction, from new to old, have their benefits and drawbacks.

Trooper Eric Keebaugh, fire marshal for the Pennsylvania State Police Carlisle barracks, said fires can strike both older and newer construction, but building materials and safety codes are making structures more and more safe for individuals, giving them greater fire protection and the ability to get out of the homes.

Jeremy Wright, project manager with Cumberland Design and Building Company, said building codes have developed over the past few decades to make home significantly safer regarding fires.

There are two major ways that the building codes and builders have accomplished that, he said. One is the creation of fire ratings and the different separations that the building code requires you to have, and the second is requiring sprinkler systems in a lot of different types of buildings.

According to information complied by Carlisle Borough Building Inspector Mike Landis and Bruce Koziar, Planning/Zoning/Codes manager, quite a few of the buildings that were built prior to the 1950 time frame were wood construction and framed using continuous lumber floor to roofline. This is referred to as balloon framing.

This type of construction constitutes a major problem, since there is no fire stopping installed between the floor to roofline, Koziars information related.

There is no fire block that prevents the fire, if the fire starts in the basement, from traveling up to the attic, Keebaugh said.

Mike Rugh, former state police fire marshal and firefighter for Union Fire Company in Carlisle, said fire in these types of structures spreads very rapidly.

With the adoption of Building Codes and the administration of the codes came the improved wall framing method of platform construction, Koziar said. With the onset of Code Enforcement, which requires inspections of many facets of construction, buildings became inherently safer. Each floor is built onto itself, stacked one above the other with fire stopping built in at each floor. This limits the amount of wall that can burn within the structure.

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Fire effects both old and new construction