— - we "ear TE woes SESSION VII 373 ~ - : 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 3 ¥g 9 *q ,