To try to protect the Chicago Stump, crews have cleared nearby brush and ringed the area in fire retardant, set up a sprinkler system to keep flames from directly hitting it and wrapped the stump in a reflective foil that wards off radiant heat.
It was made with a YKK fire retardant zip and then set on fire.
The UL meeting brought together fire safety scientists, public health scientists, and others "to talk about what we really need for fire safety, review the science regarding safety and exposure to flame retardant chemicals … and set a direction for how we get to a better place," says Tenney.
Synthetic turf, though fire-retardant, can melt if set on fire, so most fields the department has converted are fenced.
For many years, the chemical industry quoted his studies in support of Technical Bulletin 117, particularly one he did at the standards institute in 1987 in which a room filled with flame-retardant-treated chairs and electronics was set ablaze and compared with one in which the same furnishings were free of flame retardants.
"Interesting," Bergman says, telling me that he has long been curious about PBDE exposure inside airplanes, whose plastic and fabric interiors are drenched in flame retardants to meet safety standards set by the Federal Aviation Administration and its counterparts overseas.
Fire lines were dug, backfires were set, and the forests were strafed with chemical retardant, and still the woods burned.
In 2006 the people who put together that monster of a straw animal, drenched the goat in some kind of flame retardant liquid that made it impossible to set on fire.
Any prop, set or scenery pieces not already in the props inventory must be flame retardant certified.
Sprinkler lines had been set up to protect some communities in case the fire headed in their direction while more retardant drops, backburns and water bombing could happen.
