Having spent more than 25 years of my life specifying fire protection for power utility companies and fitted literally hundreds of wet systems to turbogenerators and transformers I have always thought that the position adopted by both US and European sprinkler standards with regards to the placement of sprinkler heads in electrical rooms was a little bit over-cautious. There are not too many reports where a sprinkler system has successfully operated in a well-defined electrical fire so I take some pleasure in passing on this report. Hopefully it will particularly help our colleagues in France who are presently fighting a vigorous campaign to have sprinklers installed more widely in utility rooms.
Best wishes Stewart Kidd in his capacity of Secretary General of the British Automatic Fire Sprinkler Association. Sprinkler Stop in Newcastle Entertainment Complex Bruce Patterson of Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service reports that in the early hours of Tuesday 3rd April 2012 there was a successful sprinkler activation at 'The Gate' leisure and retail complex in Newcastle city centre. This incident, notified to the F&RS at 0035 hours was caused by an electrical fault within the electrical intake cupboard of Players Bar, Newgate Street, Newcastle upon Tyne. The Gate centre, costing £80million to build in 2002 and covering almost 20000 square metres, is divided into 19 units consisting of restaurants, public bars, nightclubs and a 16 screen multi screen cinema. The fire alarm activated with 200 persons being safely evacuated. Three pumping appliances with 12 crew were dispatched to the incident. Upon fire service arrival crews found one sprinkler head in the room of origin had activated and had suppressed the fire. Crews were committed wearing BA and ensured complete extinguishment with a hose reel and CO2 extinguisher. It is reported that damage amounted to 1% light smoke damage and some water residue on the ceiling of the compartment. Jonathan Codona of Players Bar remarked that despite the fact that the fire was in the electrical intake the bar was fully operational the following day. Due to the minimal damage and disruption to trade Mr Codona is recommending the installation of sprinklers in all other Players Bar premises. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://fireball.firesprinkler.org/mailman/private/sprinklerforum/attachments/20120418/dbbf8958/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://fireball.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum
