I hope to direct this question to fire fighters or other experts in the field. My home has a networked fire alarm that activates all of the alarms if one detects smoke. It is also tied in to my home automation system so that I can get alerts, etc. My home also has a large poweful whole house fan. I don’t know the rating, but it gets the house aired out pretty quickly. I have seen house fires in the past where the fire fighters put large fans in the window - presumably to get the smoke out as quickly as possible. My question is therefore does it make sense to automate my house fan to turn on when the fire alarm activates, or would this be a bad idea and potentially make the fire worse? Any expert thoughts on this are appreciated.
smoke is what kills you in a fire, so getting the smoke out of the house as soon as possible is a good idea.
any risk of “feeding the fire” is operating under the assumption that all the oxygen has burned out of the space, so the occupants are already dead at that point.
if you want to turn on your fan, you also need to provide a means for fresh air to enter the building, or you’re just going to create negative pressure in the structure and not end up moving much air.
if you can automate a window opening as well, i don’t see any problems with running the house fan.
Not completely true, wind will (airflow from a whole house fan) spread fire. There is a reason fire danger is increased as wind speed goes up. It allows heat to spread horizontally instead of vertically which leads to combustion of surrounding materials. It leads to bigger fires more quickly.