Treatments and modification to improve the reaction to fire of wood and wood based products-An overview

Wood and wood-based products are widely used for structural building elements, but due to their composition, they are susceptible of combusting if exposed to fire. Fire safety is an important issue of building safety, especially when the building's fire load contents enhance the risks of fire spread. Therefore, the involved materials are very important to address the fire safety requirements. When existing timber structures are involved, the most usual way to improve its reaction to fire is to treat wood with fire retardant materials. The idea of this paper is to give an overall overview, on the existing fire-retardant and intumescent coating materials, modification, and treatments that can be applied to wood and wood-based products in order to improve their reaction to fire.