Got called out with the volunteer FD last night to a fire at the county administration building. It’s a one-story flat-roof block building that a roofer has been working on during the past week. The roof is 2x10s with plywood sheeting and roofing over, and sheetrock under, with FG insulation between.
At about 2:30 AM Saturday morning a passerby noticed smoke coming from a spot on the roof. No work had been done since at least 5 PM Friday, almost 10 hours prior. We extinguished a small fire that had been smoldering in the ceiling/roof assembly for at least that long. One of the 2×10 joists was burned completely thru with extension into joist bays on either side. Remarkble how long a fire can burn, and go undetected, in circumstances like that.
Second time this has happened here in the past 6 months. Watch those torches, folks.
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one of the main reasons I don't care for torchdown modified in most circumstances is the close experience I had with one of those exciting events
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About 5 years ago one of the larger roof companies that still used modified roofing in our area burned down a doctors office using it. The A/C was running and created a slight negative pressure in the building. When the torch hit an area where the deck had a small gap the flame go sucked in.
According to a fire Captain I know the fire started small just like you describe but in this case the negative pressure fed oxegen to it and fanned the flames sort of speak. Brick building so it didn't burn it to the ground but they had a really big sky light after that! The company ceased using it that day. DanT