In 1913, Congress authorized an appropriation for a study by the Bureau of Standards (now known as NIST) of the fire-resistant properties of building materials. Fires were claiming thousands of lives annually in the United States, with property losses exceeding $250 million - ten times the rate of any country in Europe. Particularly baffling to many, in the series of disastrous fires that struck American cities around the turn of the twentieth century, was the fact that skyscrapers and lesser structures purported to be fireproof often burned out as completely as older buildings.

NIST continues to study fires and fire safety engineering in its Building and Fire Research Laboratory.

To obtain information on the intensity and duration of fires in buildings, typical
(test) occupancies were burnt out, with accurate determinations of temperatures
at different levels and the corresponding durations (1923)
-from NIST Photographic Collection, Fire Research




This view shows a portion of the interior of the test structure before the fire.
It was fitted up as an office occupancy with discard furniture (1923)
-from NIST Photographic Collection, Fire Research




Interior of test structure after fire. All combustible material was consumed
except contents of two insulated safes (1923)
-from NIST Photographic Collection, Fire Research



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