AbstractLarge‐scale fire experiments have been carried out in a special test rig to study the chemical nature of fire atmosphere using a ‘fingerprint’ sampling and analysis method. Four polymeric materials—wood, polypropylene, polymethyl methacrylate and polystyrene foam—were used separately as fuel, with both high and low ventilation. In addition to oxides of carbon the fingerprints yielded typically between twenty and forty different chemical compounds including several (e.g. aldehydes) which could contribute significantly to the irritancy of the fire gases. The change in nature of the fingerprint gases with the different ventilation conditions, different polymeric materials and with different stages of the same fire is discussed, together with the toxicological significance of th
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