Translation: Deadly threat on the wall - Four Seven Five, High ...

<strong>Deadly</strong> <strong>threat</strong> on the wall?
By Hermann Wygoda, Frankfurter Neue Presse, 6‐16‐12:
http://www.fnp.de/fnp/region/lokales/frankfurt/toedliche‐gefahr‐an‐der‐
wand_rmn01.c.9884706.de.html
Translated by Floris Keverling Buisman
Frankfurt's fire chief Reinhard Ries sounds the alarm – Styrofoam/EPS insulaion is highly flammable
Approximately eighty percent of all new buildings are insulated with polystyrene. Commonly, the
material is better known as EPS. However the Frankfurt fire‐chief now ring the alarm bell: The building
insulation methodology should be reconsidered urgently, he says. The risk in case of a fire is just too
large.
By Hermann Wygoda, translated by Floris Keverling Buisman
Frankfurt.
[Fire Chief Reinhard Ries in front of the burnt facade at the Adickesallee.
The chief warns against the use of Styrofoam insulation. The inferno in the Adickesallee earlier this week
was a wake up call for Reinhard Ries . Within minutes the EIFS façade, right across from the
police department caught fire, the flames blazed so strong that the Miquelallee had to be shut
down completely ‐ in both directions.
“We were extremely lucky that no construction workers were on the scaffolding and the
apartments weren’t inhabited," declared Reinhard Ries to the Frankfurter Neue Presse. The
flames were so hot that even the concrete support structures cracked. The building would be, if
it had been inhabited, "become structurally deficient, as the temperatures would have been
much higher because of furniture," said the Frankfurt fire brigade chief.
Unbeatably cheap
The discussion regarding this very cheap insulation is not new. Made from medium crude, the
polystyrene is not fireproof, but is classified as hard to ignite. When it is exposed to high
temperatures, it catches fire. "Then polystyrene acts as an accelerant, it drives the flames in all
directions, can burst the windows and will make the fire spread to other apartments” Alfred
Broemme stated years ago.
The current president of the Technischen Hilfwerke (THW) in 2005 was head of operations of
the Berlin Fire Department. In April of that year in the district Heinersdorf had large fire
destroyed a block of flats. Two people were killed.

Styrofoam has a great advantage ‐ at least for the owner: It's cheap. Unbeatably cheap.
Alternatives such as rock wool as insulation material cost many times over. Architects told to
this newspaper, they would always have the experience that builders "just look to save every
penny on insulation."
Now, the discussion about the hazards of the substance has also reached Frankfurt. Although
there were major fires in EPS with no deaths. But the fire chief proposes alarm ". Polystyrene
must be urgently reviewed, it is necessary to examine whether larger buildings should be
insulated with that material," he says.
Ries also says: "There is an acute danger to people in buildings with more than three floors."
Because the fire was in such buildings, "reaches the limit of what the fire department is able to
extinguish".
Three cases in Frankfurt
Even the head of the Frankfurt fire department Markus Frank was concerned. He replied to a
request of the fire chief and inspected the burnt out fire at the Adickesallee. He then made the
following remarks after the FNP request: "A problem has been detected, it is now not a
question of abandoning the insulation of houses, but we must now quickly examine , if we
shouldn’t be using other insulation materials..."
The fire of the insulated with polystyrene facade in Adickesallee was not the first in Frankfurt,
that had to be put by these firefighters. In 2010 in Sachsenhausen a seven‐storey residential and
commercial building caught fire. The facade was insulated with Styrofoam. The balance of the
fire damage was around 500,000 euros and 21 injured residents. The second fire of an EIFS
facade was reported in the Battonstrasse in early November last year.
A cigarette butt is enough
What all three fires in Frankfurt had common was that the insulation boards presumably were
started by a "very high fire load" ‐ as formulated by experts. This could have been a cigarette
butt that thrown onto some carelessly stacked polystyrene on the site boards thrown ‐ and
within a short time triggered a fire.
Apparently the polystyrene boards are not as harmless as it’s fire rating as a building material
suggests. Fire experts say that in the rating the material if wasn’t assumed that a high fire load
was applied to the material.
"When you light polystyrene with a lighter, it actually melts only ‐ and just a hole is formed,"

says one expert. But if, as has happened in Frankfurt they are exposed to a heat source for a
longer time, "then the boards will burn completely within no time!"
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