Fire walls prohibit the spread of fire from one compartment of building to another for the time it takes the fire to burn itself out. The purpose is to prevent major property loss, a level of performance which also provides a significantly higher contribution to life safety than fire separation walls. Concrete masonry, due to its inherent qualities of durability, reliability and superior fire resistance characteristics, is considered by most to be far superior to other types of non-combustible materials and is well suited to fire wall construction. A fire wall must restrict the spread of fire and extend continuously from the foundation to or through the roof and have sufficient structural ability under fire conditions to allow collapse of construction on either side without collapse of the wall.
Concrete masonry products are often used in fire walls because it doesn’t burn, melt, twist or warp when exposed to fire. If a stud wall endures a fire, chances are good that it will be damaged beyond repair, not to mention the damage that the piece of sheetrock will sustain when blasted with a fireman’s hose. Block walls, on the other hand, can be simply cleaned and/or repainted.
Some believe that having a sprinkler system will replace the need for good fire resistant masonry walls. This isn’t the case. Although sprinkler systems may reduce the amount of damage in a building during a fire, they do not prevent them or even stop them. At best, they reduce the rate at which a fire spreads. Sprinkler systems are best used only as backup measures.
