Thought I'd share this. Earlier this week, we had a fire that started in the corner of a third floor combustible exterior balcony of a 3-story apartment building. The fire started due to the improper disposal of a cigarette in a flower pot. The fire smoldered in the pot and the pot eventually tipped over causing the smoldering material to spread to the composite deck. The smoldering material eventually burned/melted through the composite decking material. On the second floor balcony immediately (literally directly) below where the fire burned through the decking is a sidewall sprinkler protecting the second floor balcony. It appears that the composite decking material burned hot enough or had dropped "slag" onto the sprinkler which caused the sprinkler activation. This sidewall sprinkler, due to geometry of fuels and generated air flow due to flowing water, actually fanned the flames. However the fire did not extend significantly. All balconies are protected with sprinklers. The pendent sprinkler on the third floor balcony didn't activate due to small fire size and openness of balcony. This could have been a lot worse that it was. However it's not certain this was a true sprinkler "save". Steven Smith, CFPS | Fire Protection Engineer II Colorado Springs Fire Department | Office of the Fire Marshal Technical Services | 719-385-7362 _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum For Technical Assistance, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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