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Rendering Credit: LEVER Architecture
Lever Architecture rendering of the Oregon Fire Testing Facility
Research & Development

Oregon Fire Testing Facility

The T2 Building Innovation Hub is a signature project of the Oregon Mass Timber Coalition, led by the Port of Portland.

Award Amount
$2,480,000
Non-Federal Match
$673,200

Why a fire testing facility?

Fire safety is a critical aspect of building design. Recent building code revisions provide new prescriptive pathways for high rise construction, but many mass timber designs still fall outside the limits of these codes. Additionally, most permitting agencies, architects, structural engineers, and contractors remain relatively inexperienced with mass timber construction. There is a clear need for comprehensive fire testing data on mass timber building assemblies to give regulators and practitioners the knowledge and confidence to use these materials safely and cost-competitively.

Download the original project PDF

Project Plans

1
OSU’s TallWood Design Institute will establish a custom-built fire-testing laboratory on OSU’s Corvallis campus.
2
The intermediate scale tilting furnace will have electronic temperature and pressure control systems, a control room with data acquisition and management systems and related software, and dust collection and filtration systems.
•
The filtration system will ensure that exhaust gasses are not harmful and will include sensors to collect particulates for smoke evaluation. The furnace can be controlled to produce a standard fire curve and simulate many types of fires.
•
This flexibility will allow researchers to perform fire resistance tests on vertical or horizontal wall specimens, beam-column connections, floors, and short columns up to 8’ x 4’ in dimension.
3
The lab building will be fire-protected and sprinklered and will allow forklift access via wide front-opening double doors, and material handling via an integrated five-ton gantry crane.
4
A full-time technician will be hired and trained to operate the OFTF, design tests, fabricate test specimens, attach instrumentation, collect, and analyze data and report on results.
5
Resulting data will be used by developers, architects, and structural engineers to validate design assumptions and obtain permits for mass timber building designs; mass timber manufacturers to assist with product development efforts and technical sales, and by code officials to evaluate building code changes.

2025 Project Update

Fire safety is a critical aspect of building design. Recent building code revisions provide new prescriptive pathways for high rise construction, but many mass timber designs still fall outside the limits of these codes.

Additionally, most permitting agencies, architects, structural engineers, and contractors remain relatively inexperienced with mass timber construction. There is a clear need for comprehensive fire testing data on mass timber building assemblies to give regulators and practitioners the knowledge and confidence to use these materials safely and 
cost-competitively.

Download the 2025 Project Update PDF

Progress Updates

Based on a competitive RFP process, OSU hired a design team in 2023 led by the structural engineering firm KPFF. The design team includes Lever Architecture and fire protection engineers with extensive knowledge of mass timber construction and fire testing of wood structural systems, which will be the major focus of the new facility
During the schematic design process the OSU user team, led by TallWood Design Institute, and the design team decided to expand the footprint of the lab to allow for additional “open burn” capabilities that would open the facility to a wider range of researchers, particularly on the wildfire side and in the analysis of smoke particulate
OSU issued an RFP for, and subsequently selected, a vendor to provide a tilting hydraulic furnace, to be installed in the new lab
The schematic design phase of the project has now been concluded, and OSU is preparing to issue an RFP for a general contractor
Design work will continue throughout 2025, and construction is scheduled for January to November 2026
The Oregon Fire Testing Facility is scheduled to be operational in 2027
Rendering Credit: LEVER Architecture
Lever Architecture rendering of the Fire Testing Facility
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The Oregon Mass Timber Coalition (OMTC) is a partnership of state government and leading academic institutions to support and develop Oregon’s mass timber industry.

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