How fast does a fire spread throughout a building?

Question

Suppose in an office building or school one of the computers blows up and starts a fire. How fast would this fire spread throughout the building? Like how many minutes or hours?

Answer 1

It would depend on the construction of the building (what it's made of) and what kind of doors and if they are open or closed and on the contents of the building.

If it's a wooden structure with a lot of flammable material inside and open doors, the whole thing could be involved within a half-hour.

A concrete structure with good closed fireproof doors and a normal amount of paperwork could take hours.

Answer 2

The contents of a room are usually fully engulfed before the local structure catches fire. The spread then depends on the rest of the contents, on the materials of construction and the shape, arrangement and ventilation of the building.
People are seldom killed by the fire itself. The great majority are killed by the toxic and asphyxiating chemicals in the smoke ,then by the hot smoke. They are usually already dead long before the flames actually arrive, if they ever do. Yes, there are tragic exceptions to this, but overall, they are the exceptions.
Fires beginning in a room usually go through a smouldering stage during which time a decent detection system will be activated before flames even appear.
Fires in homes are much more dangerous because of the flammable plastic -based and wooden contents and the smaller volume as compared to a school of office building.
Fire in a home can quickly fill the dwelling with hot toxic smoke. You will have only a few minutes to get out get away and not go back for any reason whatever. You will not know what happened to you because many of the gasses from a fire are not "smelly" enough to warn you that they are there.

With an "exploding computer" in a school unless there was flammable furniture and carpeting, not much else would happen as far as a serious fire is concerned.

Answer 3

No set answer. Modern structures have sprinkler systems that would slow the spread of a fire and an automatic alarm to notify the nearby fire department. Moreover, computers just don't blow up.

Answer 4

Depends on many things
Does the building have a sprinkler system?
how old is the structure. are the rooms empty? what are on the walls?( paint, wallpaper)
there is no set answer for this question!

Answer 5

Its a warning from Allah swt. Ask an scholar the meaning of ur dream.