Fire retardants for wood

Along with many advantages, wood as traditional building material also has some disadvantages. One of them is the flammability. The most usual way to improve the fire performance of wood is by treating it with fire retardants that can be applied to wood composite products during manufacture, pressure impregnated into solid wood or wood products or added as a paint or surface coating. Fire retardants are formulated to control ignition, flame spread on the wood surface and to reduce the amount of heat released from wood. Fire retardants cannot make wood non combustible. According to the European reaction-to-fire “Euroclasses”classification system for construction products, wood treated with fire retardant can meet the requirements of  Euroclass B, whereas ordinary wood products typically fall into class D. This article attempts to bring together information related to the burning of wood, fire performance of wood, types of fire retardants and mechanism of fire retardancy. Fire retardant coatings and chemical impregnation by pressure-treating are described separately.