The New York Times

NEW YORK — In the smoky caldron of a high-rise fire, it is the firefighter's worst nightmare: a door left ajar, a window that suddenly breaks under intense heat and a blast of wind.

At its worst, the outcome is catastrophic. Known to firefighters as a blowtorch effect, the instant combination of fire and wind can blast fireballs across rooms and down corridors without warning, within seconds, and at temperatures that render hoses and protective clothing of little use.

Now, amid an expanding search across the nation for better ways to prevent or contain high-rise infernos, the Fire Department, federal fire experts and engineers from Polytechnic University in Brooklyn have taken over part of Governors Island, the 172-acre former Coast Guard installation off Lower Manhattan, for a week of pyrotechnics intended to test "alternative strategies and tactics for wind-driven events."

Full story: Fire officials tackle challenges of high-rise blazes