Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service advise all businesses and schools to consider fitting sprinkler systems. Sprinklers can quickly bring a fire under control, reducing the economic impact of a fire to a business.

Sprinklers are combined fire detection and extinguishing systems. They provide continuous protection throughout the day and night, irrespective of whether or not the premises are occupied. Sprinkler systems operate automatically and only sprinkler heads in the area affected by fire will operate.

Automatic sprinkler systems are used more than any other fixed fire protection system and have been proven in use for well over 100 years.

Losses from fires in buildings protected with sprinklers are estimated to be just 1/10 of those in unprotected buildings.

Modern sprinklers are specially designed to meet the needs of architects in offices, hotels, shops, hospitals and prestige buildings. They are compact and elegant. In most buildings the public are usually unaware that sprinklers are fitted. Concealed sprinklers are recessed and covered by a flat plate flush with the ceiling. They are unobtrusive and almost invisible. Concealed sprinklers are ideal for clean areas, where there is restricted headroom or vandalism is a problem.

Apart from explosions there have never been multiple fatalities in a fully sprinklered building in the United Kingdom. The total number of deaths world-wide in sprinklered buildings is only 50 compared to thousands in unprotected buildings. This is a record no other fire system can match.

 

Seven Sprinkler Stats!

• Sprinklers operate once the temperature hits approximately 68ºC.
• The likelihood of a sprinkler operating accidentally is estimated at 16 million to one – you’ve more chance of winning the lottery!
• Firefighters often use 10 times more water from hoses to do the same job as a sprinkler. This increases considerably with larger buildings or commercial premises - in tackling the Windsor Castle fire, 7 million litres of water were used!
• Statistics show that widespread use of sprinklers could save up to 96% of the 5.6 billion litres of water used annually in the UK to fight large fires - three months supply of water for the entire population of a city the size of Leeds!
• Losses from fires in buildings protected with sprinklers are estimated to be only one tenth of those in unprotected buildings.
• More than 40 million sprinklers are fitted worldwide every year.
• In the UK there has never been a fire death in a fully sprinklered building. US Government employees on business only stay in sprinklered hotels because the Government will not otherwise pay their expenses.

 

Presentations from the Sprinkler Seminar- Friday 13th November 2009

Domestic and Residential Sprinklers, 'A Fire Officers Perspective'

Studley Green Experience