In terms of Fire Safety Engineering, knowledge of the actual anticipated fire behaviour of the materials in the shell of the building is essential to ensure that fire growth and smoke production are not underestimated.

During a fire, the thermal radiation level is determined using the sum of the permanent and variable fire load. Burning flue gasses are not only vertically discharged, the discharge direction changes under the influence of wind speed, to almost horizontal. The level of thermal radi- ation on adjoining roofs and exterior walls is therefore subject to the weather and can significantly exceed the threshold value of 15 kW/m2. This means that exterior wall and roof surfaces of adjoining fire compartments and adjoining buildings can become ignited. Such a fire scenario is described in, for instance, European standard EN1187, part 3.

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