Get started
Work

Evaluation of the Reaction to Fire of Historic Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) from a Historic Building in Poland

Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Assessing historic timber requires separating service history from material variability, surface condition and sampling limitations. This study characterizes Scots pine recovered during renovation of the historic half-timbered residential building at farm no. 5 in Swołowo, Poland, dated to 1869, and compares it with contemporary pine and previously published oak results from the same building. Twenty-four historic-pine tests and four contemporary-reference tests were analysed by mass loss calorimetry at 35 and 50 kW/m2. The study extends earlier work by examining, within one historic-pine dataset, how area-normalized peak and total heat release relate to heat release normalized by initial specimen mass, while placing the results in a shared building-provenance context with published oak data. Mean ignition times of historic series ranged from 31.4 to 65.6 s at 35 kW/m2 and from 12.0 to 19.0 s at 50 kW/m2, versus 48.0 and 12.5 s for the references. Mean peak heat-release rates (pHRRs) were 8.4–32.1% higher in historic pine, whereas heat release per initial specimen mass (Q0) was 7.5–22.5% lower; these opposite directions show that peak intensity and mass-normalized heat contribution are not interchangeable. Area-normalized total heat release (THR) varied in direction. Published historic oak showed consistently lower THR, while its pHRR response depended on surface condition. The material was obtained from a historic building, rather than from a controlled ageing experiment; all historic pine tests came from one structural member, and the reference groups were small and heterogeneous. Two mass-signal discrepancies and incomplete specimen-level anatomical and density data further limit inference. Accordingly, the results do not establish an ageing effect or a fire-reaction classification. Fire-performance assessment of historic timber should consider ignition time, peak heat release and mass-normalized heat release separately, without attributing observed differences to age alone.
Source: Materials
DOI: 10.3390/ma19224790
Language: English
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,137
OpenAlex ID: W7225804845
FWCI:
Cites:
Cited by:
Related to: