Travelling Fires and the St. Lawrence Burns Project

This paper represents a timely communication that critically evaluates an example of previously inaccessible and aged grey literature that can now be found in the National Research Council of Canada’s open access online repository. This grey literature, in the form of a series of reports detailing two large scale compartment fire tests from 1958, is critically evaluated. While potential credence to the contemporary research theme of travelling fires framework and methodology is given herein, this evaluation supports further and continued investigation into large compartment fire behaviour to help progress the development and the improvement of fire methodologies for the design of buildings. A case is made that aged grey literature, particularly when previously inaccessible, merits second consideration as information can be of contemporary use for fire science researchers and practitioners.