The problem of determination of flammability of substances remains unresolved up to the present day. Even in the Federal law № 123-FL the concept of flammability is given in various interpretations. It is shown that flammability is a changeable factor and its change occurs under the influence of parameters of a material condition and other factors. It is offered to divide all substances and materials, except construction, into three groups - flammable, hardly flammable and nonflammable. For construction, leather and textile materials it is provides only two groups - flammable and nonflammable. It is known that construction, leather and textile materials undergo various stages of the life cycle: production, transportation, processing, storage and application. Depending on the stage they can be characterized by one or another group of flammability. Flammability of materials depending on field of their application isn't defined legislatively. There is also no scientific basis for such methods. In this regard we have a necessity of correction of existing law for the purpose of elimination of noted shortcomings.

One of the main problems of fire-resistant technology for fills openings in fire barriers is providing of the required level of integrity between the contour of the opening and inserted into the opening fireproof construction (fire-door or fire-hatch frame, duct fire damper, etc.) is considered. Features of ensuring for fireproof constructions having only minor cracks or holes in its contours in width from 1 to 10 mm with using of special flame retardant foams and fire sealants to prevent the combustion products having high ignition capacity to penetrate from one room to another and cause a fire spreading in the building are appended. The necessity to take into account during fire tests a properties of mounting fire-foams are used for fire resistant sealing space between the bundle of cables, passing through the open doorway of fire barriers, especially depend on chemical properties of materials, and also the thickness and depth filling of openings, is substantiated. The designing of fire-resistant clearance leakage sealings between the bundle of cable products passing through the technological opening in a fire barrier that represents a special structure, called penetration seal, that should not only seal the all the free passages between the sheath of the cable, but also to maintain its integrity in the process of fire exposure, providing the required fire resistance for loss of insulating capacity (I), a loss of integrity (E) and the critical temperature of cabel sheaths heating (T), is examined.

The scientific department of Expert-Criminalistic Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia has observed cement bricks after the heat impact in order to evaluate the possibility of usage of thermal analysis to study concretes after the fire accidents. The samples of M200 and M400 (Russian cement types) cement bricks were prepared for the observation (the river sand was added to the M400 cement mixture). The obtained samples were annealed in the muffle roaster under 200-1000 °C with 100 °C interval for 15, 30 and 60 minutes. These samples were tested with a hammer of Kashkarov. It is discovered, that the changes are not significant at the opening phase with the temperature rising from 200 to 500 °C. However, under the temperature between 500 and 700 °C essential decrease of the samples' resistibility and their destruction afterward are observed. The results of through and dilatational sonic test have similar regularity and prove that the speed of the ultrasonic wave going through the sample decreases with rising of the stone thermal damage. The time of the ultrasonic wave going through the sample depends remarkably on the duration of the annealing process. The thermally damaged samples of the cement bricks were tested with the SDT-Q600 instrument. The synchronous thermal analysis (STA) provided the temperatures, under which the mass of the samples reduces, defined the processes, going in the studied sample, and the duration of the heat impact. The result of the current research concludes that the thermal analysis (alternatively to the nondestructive testing and testing by Kashkarov hammer) allows to explore microquantity of the substance, provides the regularity of the cement bricks alternations, which permits to differentiate the level and the duration of the heat impact. During the expertise of the cement stone, the loss of the remaining mass can be used as the differentiating grade of the material thermal damage. The appliance of the STA allows to define the different components presence in the system, the beginning and the level of the material decompounding, the remaining mass of the sample depending on the time and temperature of the heat-up. Altogether they influence the constructional materials characteristics.

It is developed a modified zonal model for calculating the gas dynamics of fire in the room, taking into account the effect of walling the house in the form of convective column formed above a source of combustion. Contrast to the known zonal models is to use to calculate the mass flow rate through the cross section of the column suggested a one-dimensional differential equation. An experimental installation with dimensions 1,5x0,7x0,7 m is created to study the dynamics of fire hazards in small-scale room. Results of experiments on the study of the shape and angle of convective column are presented. In the experiments, a combustible material (phenol-formaldehyde resin filled with wood flour) was located in the center, in the corner of the room (the constraint of two surfaces), and also near the wall in the middle of it (tightness one surface). Visualization of the flow showed that at all locations of combustible material boundary of a convective column is first propagated upward with a constant angle of disclosure about half the height of the room, and then the above-mentioned angle changes only slightly. There are obtained experimental data confirm the theoretical results, using the proposed equation for calculating the mass flow through the cross-section of a convective column. It is shown that the use of approach of unlimited free-convective jets in the zonal models to describe the parameters of the convective column does not reflect the real thermodynamic picture of the fire development in the room.

Oil refinery and storage facilities have a high potential fire threat level by virtue of their specifics, because there is a significant amount of fire hazardous substances and complicated technological processes taking place on the territory thereof. The statistics analysis shows that the number of workers at such enterprises decreases every year because of automation of production processes. A statistics data analysis has been conducted concerning fires at oil refinery facilities which has revealed that 92-99 % of the overall material damage caused by fires at production facilities can be formed by 3-10 % of large-scale fires. We have examined the current Russian and foreign decision support information technologies at oil refinery and storage facilities, carried out their classification, revealed the major disadvantages and advantages. We have defined a number of basic tasks which should be completed by a decision support system of fire risk management at oil refinery facilities and have given the requirements imposed on it.

Value judgment of human perception of the situation which developed at the fire scene is one of the major factors defining a line of conduct of the person in an emergency. Character of an assessment allows to define ingenuity degree of a situation and risk; choose appropriate decisions, ways, means and ways of realization of risky behavior, predict negative consequences possibility. It is represented the analysis of the theoretical and methodological grounds in research of a fire danger situation image problem. It is established that activity, riskology and information approaches are major in research of this perspective. It is proved that gender features of formation of a fire danger situation image influence its main characteristics. Thus there is the tendency for men to complete image perception, its reflection in the context of the present and its representation through a prism of the behavioral patterns focused on search of means and ways of escaping an emergency situation. Women behavior is characterized by diffusion fragmentary filling of an image, its emotional and estimated coding and representation through a prism of the affective, not connected characteristics reflecting violation of a temporary context of a situation, forecasting of negative consequences possibility, sharpening of helplessness before a situation and fears for children, property, loss of life project. The received results can be used in development of the differentiated approach in training of in fire safety measures for population, the organizing the informing of the population in emergency situations, and also in development of fire safety instructions.

The protection of building occupants by mean of automatic fire protection systems is discussed. The influence of the following main systems of protection for human security is shown: fire detection and warning, automatic fire extinguishing, smoke removal and internal fire water supply system. It is shown that systems for the detection and warning of fire is almost completely absent in the buildings where a fire killed the greatest number of people. The automatic fire suppression system is almost entirely oriented to support the fighting of fire units, smoke protection system and water supply system is only partly focused on the protection of the building occupants. An approved in other countries way to reduce deaths in fires is proposed in the paper.

One of the ways to increase the efficiency of firefighters' actions is mechanization of their work. It includes the process of delivery hose rolling after fire that is a very intensive and time-consuming activity. To accelerate this process it is suggested to use hose line purging device and device for hose rolling. Purging with compressed air allows forcing out the residues of extinguishing agents from hose lines quicker, and mechanization of hose rolling process helps to reduce time of this activity. The test results analysis of these devices shows that hose line purging before its dismantling allows making a hose rolling process 3-31 seconds quicker. It depends on the quantity of hoses in the line: the more hoses, the more time saving. Mechanization of hose rolling process allows to reduce the time of their collecting more than for one minute for each hose. Thus the use of these devices increases the efficiency of firefighters' actions during fire danger period or in cold weather conditions.