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we "ear
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SESSION VII
373
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CONARD- We probably wouldn't have a fire storm in an America”
city, do you think"
:
a4
WARREN: Yes. [think so,
a
UPTON:
_
They had a terrific fire in McCormack Place just a year
ago and that was supposed to be a fireproof building,
a
SPEAR:
It hada lot of combustible material in it.
UPTON:
Most buildings are full of combustible material,
SPEAR:
That was furniture and packaging material, and so on,
WARREN: Ina densely packed residential area with houses 20
feet apart, you would get good fires started, [think in our area our
fire chief is just panicked all the time, Ifa good-sized fire started
with good updraft developing, and we unfortunately had a wiad, it
would be a very seriou, problem to control even under normal conditions, i.e, water, equipment, men, etc,
is a
oe
eee etre,
DUNHAM: “eas there any fire-fighting at Nagasaki? We Knowat
Hiroshima it was essentially zero because they had no opportunity to
fight it and it was a fire storm that was comparable to Dresden, Wut
what about Nagasaki?
a
WARREN
They had fire lanes,
This was very effective tn stapping the progress of the fire southward towards the mouth of the
Irikam: Valley. They had a lot of antiquated equipment around, We
%
x
it
sawa lot of burned firehouses.
Chuck,
was,
But they hada fire storm,
too,
I[t wasn't as dramatically described as the one in Hiroshima
but in about half an hour to three quarters of an hour the short
circuits and the hibachis fired buildings that were collapsed. [think
becauseof the confinement of the hills, the blast probably flattened
a high percentage of these buildings ina hupe area. It was a densely
crowded area with lots of combustible materigis, With the collapse
of these one- and two-story buildings, it just went up like a torch,
SPEAR: There have been some fairly sophisticated statements of
what it takes in terms of the percentage of ground area occupied by
combustible buildings to support a fire storm. I forget the numbers
now, but there was a lot of involvement of the National Fire Protection
Association and people in this field in the early 50's based upon the
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