Dive summary:

• An earthquake can leave a building's fire-extinguishing systems intact but make the structure vulnerable in many other ways, researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Mass., say after working with a building that simulated the real thing.
• The engineers from the Bay State's college's Department of Fire Protection Engineering teamed up with University of California San Diego researchers who planned to shake a five-story building on their college's outdoor shake table.
• Sprinklers worked after hard temblors, but cracks between walls and floors and ceiling allowed smoke and fire to spread, jammed doors made entry for firefighters or escape for occupants problematic, debris from burning materials made passage difficult at best, and disabled elevators formed chimneys for smoke and heat to spread.

From the article:

"Although considerable research has been undertaken with respect to the performance of structural systems in quakes, research aimed at understanding and quantifying the performance of nonstructural systems and post-earthquake fire performance of buildings has been severely lacking." ...