| The Investigation Process Research Resource Site A Pro Bono site with hundreds of resources for Investigation Investigators | |||||
| Home Page | Forums | Site Guidance | FAQs | Old news | Site inputs |
SCIENTIFIC METHOD The systematic pursuit of knowledge involving a) the recognition and formulation of a problem b) the collection of data through observation and experiment, and c) the formulation and testing of a hypothesis. [NFPA 921 - 1992]
SELF-SERVICE OUTLET means a fuel dispensing station, other than a marine fuel dispensing station, where the public handles the dispenser. (Ontario Fire Code 1996)
SERVICE ROOM means a room in a building used to contain equipment associated with building services. (Ontario Fire Code 1996)
SERVICE SPACE means space in a building used to facilitate or conceal the installation of building service facilities such as chutes, ducts, pipes, shafts or wires. (Ontario Fire Code 1996)
SIMILE / an explicit comparison between two things using 'like' or 'as'.
*My love is as a fever, longing still For that which longer nurseth the disease, Shakespeare, Sonnet XLVII
*Reason is to faith as the eye to the telescope. D. Hume [?]
*Let us go then, you and I, While the evening is spread out against the sky, Like a patient etherized upon a table... T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (A Glossary of Rhetorical Terms with Examples, Ross Scaife) SMOKE
Small particles of carbon, tarry particles, and condensed water vapor suspended in the atmosphere, resulting from the incomplete combustion of carbonaceous materials. [Fire Cause Determination, IFSTA 1986]
SMOKE (from fire) The mixture of tiny particles and gases produced by a fire. The particles consist mainly of soot and / or aerosol mist. [Friedman 1989]
SMOKE ALARM means a combined smoke detector and audible alarm device that is designed to sound an alarm within the room or suite in which it is located when there is smoke within the room or suite. (Ontario Fire Code 1996)
SMOKE DETECTOR means a device that senses the presence of visible or invisible particles produced by combustion and that automatically initiates a signal indicating this condition. (Ontario Fire Code 1996)
SMOLDERING COMBUSTION Combustion of a solid in the absence of flame. Generally, smoke is produced. [Friedman 1989]
SOLID A state of matter in which the molecules are mostly or completely locked into position relative to one another, as contrasted with a liquid. A solid can either be crystalline and hard like slat, or amorphous and soft like butter. [Friedman 1989]
SOOT Tiny particles consisting mostly of carbon, often formed in diffusion flames and in very rich premixed flames. Soot is important in fires because (1) it affects the radiative heat transfer rate from flames and therefore the combustion rate, and (2) it is a principle source of the vision-obscuring smoke produced in the fires. Soot contains polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Finally, because soot has a cyclic structure, it would be expected that if the original fuel had a cyclic structure, like benzene (C6H6) or toluene (C6H5CH3), that this would cause an extremely sooty flame, and it does. [Friedman 1989]
SPACE HEATER means a space-heating appliance that heats the room or space within which it is located without the use of ducts. (Ontario Fire Code 1996)
SPACE-HEATING APPLIANCE means an appliance that supplies heat to a room or space directly or indirectly or to rooms or spaces of a building through a heating system. (Ontario Fire Code 1996)
SPARK TRACKING SUBJECT FIELD(S) Plastics spark tracking*a SOURCES a*ISO-194*1981*** (Source : Termium 1996)
SPECIFIC GRAVITY The ratio of the density of a substance to the density of water at a specified temperature. (For gases, the reference substance is sometimes taken to be dry air at a specified temperature and pressure. [Friedman 1989]
SPRAYING AREA means the area that is within 6 m of a spray booth or spraying operation and that is not separated therefrom by a vapour-tight separation. (Ontario Fire Code 1996)
SPRAY BOOTH means a power-ventilated structure that encloses or accommodates a spraying operation so that spray vapour and residue can be controlled and exhausted. (Ontario Fire Code 1996)
SPRAY ROOM means a spraying area on a floor area or part thereof in which an open spraying operation is confined and that is separated from the remainder of the building in which it is located by a noncombustible vapour-tight separation. (Ontario Fire Code 1996)
SPRINKLERED (as applying to a building or part thereof) means that the building or part thereof is equipped with a system of automatic sprinklers. (Ontario Fire Code 1996)
SPRINKLERS (automatic extinguishing systems) Automatic sprinkler systems should be installed in all large buildings. They are the most effective means of controlling fires in such buildings, especially in a small community with a limited water supply and fire department. ( Heinke et al., Fire Protection for Northern Communities, Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering, Vol.1!2, No.3, Sept.1985)
STATE A condition of existence of a person or thing. (Benner 1997)
STOICHIOMETIRIC REACTION Chemical A is said to undergo a stoichiometric reaction with chemical B when the proportions of A and B are such that there is no excess of either A or B remaining after the reaction. [Friedman 1989]
STOICHIOMETRY The procedure for calculating the combining proportions (by mass or volume) of reactants and products of a chemical reaction, on the basis of chemical formulas and atomic weights. The underlying principles are the conservation of atomic species and the conservation of mass. [Friedman 1989]
STORAGE TANK means a vessel for flammable or combustible liquids having a capacity of more than 230 L and designed to be installed in a fixed location. (Ontario Fire Code 1996)
STOREY means that portion of a building that is situated between the top of any floor and the top of the floor next above it, and where there is no floor above it, that portion between the top of the floor and the ceiling above it. (Ontario Fire Code 1996)
STRAY CURRENT SUBJECT FIELD(S) Traction (Rail), Electrical Power Supply, Electric Currents stray currents*a,b DEF*Portions of the return current which take a path (such as through ground or pipework) other than the return circuit, for a certain distance of their course.*a SOURCES: a*CEI-50-30*1957***20, b*8TEP*1990 (Source : Termium 1996)
STREET means any highway, road, boulevard, square or other improved thoroughfare 9 m or more in width, that has been dedicated or deeded for public use, and is accessible to fire department vehicles and equipment. (Ontario Fire Code 1996)
SUITE means a single room or series of rooms of complementary use, operated under a single tenancy, and includes dwelling units, individual guest rooms in motels, hotels, boarding houses, rooming houses and dormitories as well as individual stores and individual or complementary rooms for business and
personal services occupancies. (Ontario Fire Code 1996)
SUPERVISORY STAFF means those occupants of a building who have some delegated responsibility for the fire safety of other occupants under the fire safety plan and may include the fire department where the fire department agrees to accept these responsibilities. (Ontario Fire Code 1996)
SURFACE TENSION The elastic-like force in the substance of a liquid, tending to minimize the surface area, causing drops to form. Expressed as newtons per meter or dynes per centimeter. (There are 100,000 dynes per newton.) [Friedman 1989]
SURFACE TRACKING SUBJECT FIELD(S) : Electrical Engineering, Insulators and Supporting Materials, Above-Ground Transmission Systems, (Electr.) surface tracking*a SOURCES : a*CGE-5*1979*** (Source : Termium 1994)
SYLLEPSIS / use of a word with two others, with each of which it is understood differently.
*We must all hang together or assuredly we will all hang separately. Benjamin Franklin (A Glossary of Rhetorical Terms with Examples, Ross Scaife)
SYNCHYSIS / interlocked word order. (A Glossary of Rhetorical Terms with Examples, Ross Scaife)
SYNECDOCHE / understanding one thing with another; the use of a part for the whole, or the whole for the part. (A form of metonymy.)
*Give us this day our daily bread. Matthew 6
*I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
*The U.S. won three gold medals. (Instead of, The members of the U.S. boxing team won three gold medals.) (A Glossary of Rhetorical Terms with Examples, Ross Scaife)
SYNESIS (=constructio ad sensum) / the agreement of words according to logic, and not by the grammatical form; a kind of anacoluthon.
*For the wages of sin is death. Romans 6
*Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them. Acts 6 (A Glossary of Rhetorical Terms with Examples, Ross Scaife)
SYSTEMATIC A set of orderly, structurally inter-related steps based on a network of concepts, principles and rules. (Benner 1997)
TANK VEHICLES means any vehicle, other than railroad tank cars and boats, with a cargo tank having a capacity of more than 450 L, mounted or built as an integral part of the vehicle, and used for the transportation of flammable or combustible liquids and includes tank trucks, trailers and semi-trailers. (Ontario Fire Code 1996)
TAUTOLOGY / repetition of an idea in a different word, phrase, or sentence.
*With malice toward none, with charity for all. Lincoln, Second Inaugural (A Glossary of Rhetorical Terms with Examples, Ross Scaife)
TENT means a shelter or structure with a covering that is made of pliable material. (Ontario Fire Code 1996)
TEST means the operation of a device or system to ensure that it will perform in accordance with its intended operation or function. (Ontario Fire Code 1996)
THERMAL IGNITION Spontaneous ignition that occurs as the! result of progressive heating by an external heat source. [Friedman 1989]
THERMITE REACTION A highly exothermic reaction between a metal and the oxide of another metal; for example, the reaction of molten or powdered magnesium with iron oxide to form magnesium oxide and molten iron. [Friedman 1989]
TRACKING SUBJECT FIELD(S) : Plastics Manufacturing, Insulators and Supporting Materials tracking*a,b,c OBS*The formation of a conducting path across the surface of an insulating material by current discharge or leakage.*a SOURCES: a*ISO-472*1979***, b*ISO-194*1981***, c*DORUB*1965***591 (Source : Termium 1996)
TRANSLATION Translation is a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a written message and / or statement in one language by the same message and / or statement in another language. (P. Newmark, Approaches to translation, in Stylistique différentielle 1, M.-N. Legoux & E. Valentine, Sodilis, Montréal, 1989)
TRAVEL DISTANCE means the distance from any point in a floor area to an exit measured along the path of exit travel, except that when floor areas are subdivided into rooms used singly or into suites of rooms and served by public corridors or exterior passageways, the distance shall be measured from the door of the rooms or suites to the nearest exit. (Ontario Fire Code 1996)
UNDERSTANDING FIRE Fire is basically a chemical reaction between combustibles and oxygen. The fire products (smoke) consist of a complex mixture of chemicals that interact with humans trying to fight a fire or escape from a fire. Extinguishing agents and fire retardants are also chemicals. Clearly, an understanding of chemistry is a prerequisite to a thorough understanding of fire. [Friedman 1989]
UNIFORM CODING FOR FIRE PROTECTION As the objectives of fire defense management have narrowed from the control of conflagrations early in this century toward the control of fires in rooms, the need for uniform information about fire incidents as well as for an effective method of collecting and using that information has become recognized. To this end, there must be a common international language for the description of fire incident information, and systematic methods must be available for the routine collection, processing, and use of significant local information. Those keeping their data using definitions and codes compatible with this standard will be able to share and compare information. THE ORIGINAL REPORT FROM THE OFFICER IN CHARGE SHOULD BE IN HIS OWN WORDS, ACCURATELY DESCRIBING THE SITUATION HE ACTUALLY FOUND. This standard may be used as an aid to word choice. NUMERIC CODES MAY BE ADDED BY THE OFFICER HIMSELF OR BY A CENTRAL CODING OFFICE. [NFPA 901-1981]
UNSTABLE LIQUID means a liquid, including flammable and combustible liquids, which is chemically reactive to the extent that it will vigorously react or decompose at or near normal temperature and pressure conditions or which is chemically unstable when subject to impact. (Ontario Fire Code 1996)
ABC - DEF - GHI - JKL - MNO - PQR - STU - VWXYZ