ABSTRACT
The National Bureau of Standards (NBS) has had international leadership in the measurements, standards, and technologies associated with prevention of human suffering and losses of lives, property, and societal capabilities to unwanted fires. This chapter describes the NBS’ Tests of the Severity of Building Fires, relating the context in which the publication appeared, its impact on science, technology, and the general public, and brief details about the lives and work of the author. Fire measurement at NBS quantified the intensity and duration of building fires. Indications of the intensity of building fires have been obtained from fused metals and from general fire effects on materials on which information is extant as to their reaction to temperature or fire exposure such as in test fires. The fire ruins or reports of fires give, however, little information of the duration of the temperatures in any given portion of the building.
