In my story, a group of people have essentially cornered some monsters in a sports hall and they are going to try and burn it down with them inside. Now my original idea was they were just going to barricade the doors, then use a sort of make shift hose thing and some cans of petrol to pour petrol under the doors so it seeps into the hall, and set it on fire (they have limited supplies, so no bombs or anything like that). But thinking about it, im not sure that would work really. Since a sports hall is pretty much a big open room with nothing in it, even if they did that and the petrol covered say a third of the floor, wouldnt it just burn itself out with nothing to really set fire to? I can't rely on the smoke killing the monsters, and they could break out fairly easily, so really the fire has to take pretty quickly to panic them. With those sort of limited supplies is that even really possible? Or am I going to have to approach this differently? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
Not particularly, but it needs to be somewhere pretty big with no windows so they can stay in the dark, and a sports hall seemed the easiest solution to that in a standard town.
Old factory? Often only have those small windows at the top, like a sports hall. Whatever is/was being produced can add fuel to your fire: wool production has lanolin as a by-product, for instance. Otherwise maybe think theatre? Cinema? Both need to keep you in the dark and have lots of soft furnishings; though because of modern safety standards they may not go up so fast. Car manufacturing maybe? Anywhere with lots of solvents/paints.
Why does it have to be somewhere big? I'm just thinking that the smaller the place they're trapped, the quicker it will go up.
It would be easier to answer if you were taliking about humans, since we don't know what sort of abilities your monsters have. Your question made me think of the scene in the movie The Dirty Dozen, where the Dozen locked Nazis in a dance hall (IIRC) and poured gasoline through the ceiling vents (an allusion to the gas introduced into the death camp gas chambers, I think) and ignited the gasoline with hand grenades. Asphyxiation and panic did the rest, but the Nazis weren't strong enough to force their way out as your m0nsters might be.
I think you're right - a sports hall (I'm thinking, like, a basketball gym?) won't go up very fast, won't have much to catch and extend the fire, won't have enough to truly burn to the ground. Also - here in my little corner of the US many of those type places are cinder-block. I think an old abandoned theater would be better, personally. Trap them in a viewing room / theater, light the fire in the lobby, and get out of the building. Its being old and abandoned might circumvent the modern firesafes theaters have nowadays, and there are multiple doors so you can trap them in an interior room, set the fire around them, and flee.
And old factory is possible, but seems a bit cliché to me. Cinema is a possibility.. How about a school assembly hall? e.g. I could say it has wooden chairs or benches or something, and it having big curtains and wooden floors/walls would definitely help. Do you think something like that would go up pretty quickly?
Make it an historic building made of wood, with wooden floors, and maybe some attached benches? I feel an old church would work well.
How about a whisky factory?! This popped up on my FB feed: http://www.iflscience.com/environment/firenado-fuelled-jim-beam ! Are your monsters sentient? If the people pour in something flammable will they recognise it as dangerous? Basically, will there be time for fumes to build up before ignition?
I would say that would work, but I think your best bet would be somewhere that isn't in current use. If this is happening in a populous area, a building in use will have alarms. Authorities would be there before you could even get out of the building. Abandoned buildings don't always have those, and older ones certainly wouldn't. A disused school could work well, though. I can say that from fairly recent personal experience, a wooden structure (i.e. an old schoolhouse, theater, factory, church, etc.) will go up very quickly. Even if the authorities arrive within ten minutes of your characters' departure, the building could be fully involved by that time. The right wood (heart pine, cedar, etc.) will burn very hot and very quickly, and a tin/metal roof will keep the heat in and allow it to get hotter still. A more rural area will be farther from authorities (fire, police, etc.) and give it the opportunity to reach that hotter temperature before something can be done.
An autoshop/garage. Plenty of flammable material and petrol tanks etc to get a nice toasty monster roast going in no time.
Shop class room. Fairly big, tools, benches and stools, wood, paint, varnishes... I seem to remember that the one at my junior high didn't have any windows.
wont the walls eventually catch fire as well? In large structures what eventually gets the people inside is that that support structures catch fire weaken and then begin to collapse. The building will also fill with smoke, which will deprive the monsters of oxygen.
Kind of curious about what your original post says about trying to kill the monsters, and that smoke would not do the trick. Many buildings would have a basement, access space, etc. below the floor and a hardy monster would probably ride out the firestorm in there. If you use some sort of heavier than air gas: natural, propane, etc. it might seep into the below floor level areas and of course explode once triggered. If the building is well sealed, the lack of fresh air will reduce the flames significantly and you seem to suggest that you might not be actually destroying the monsters in this event anyway. If they can survive lack of oxygen and the poisonous gases that result from a fire you may have a credibility problem in simply burning them out. If you intend that they die in this instance, maybe have the fire sprinklers go off and the electrical wiring break loose, fall onto the wet floor, which then electrocutes the monsters.
