Sprinkler News - Bafsa

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Protecting Property, Life and the Environment Newsletter No 17 Page 16 Fire Industry News (cont.) The Network (a brief overview ) Replacement for Network Secretary Glyn Evans has decided to retire as secretary and we all thank him for his efforts. Les Fielding has agreed to take up the position. LGA Campaign – Sprinklers In Schools These series of documents are now available on the LGA web site www.lga.gov.uk and include : - ♦ A toolkit for schools ♦ A toolkit for domestic properties ♦ Counting the cost of fire and a supportive of the role sprinklers play . ♦ Unfortunately the DfES school exemplar designs had been circulated, but they made no recommendations for sprinklers. The next meeting of the Network would be held on the 21 st June 2004 and will consist of a seminar in the Houses of Parliament including a lunch and a drinks reception with MP’s on the terrace in the evening. BASA Welcomes 2 new forum appointments BASA welcomes Pamela Castle and Jeff Ord to the positions of Chairman of the Business and Community Safety Forum (BCSF) and Chairman of the Practitioners Forum respectively. The BCSF is a new body that will ensure the fire and rescue service works closely alongside a wider body of stakeholders – such as business, industry and community representatives – who can express their views on strategic issues facing the service. This new stakeholder body will represent a wider body of ‘consumers’ of the service than the previous advisory machinery. The practitioners’ Forums main responsibility will be to advise Ministers on matters of moderation in the Fire and Rescue Service. Companies warned of invalid insurances as Halon deadline passes. December 31, 2003 was the deadline for the decommissioning of Halon based fire suppression systems and the Association of British Insurers (ABI) has warned companies who have failed to meet their obligations that they have invalidated their insurance policies. DEFRA, the government department responsible for enforcing the deadline, issued a letter of warning of the insurance consequences of non-compliance, quoting the ABI- “insurers require policyholders to comply fully with their legal obligations. Reliance on a Halon system after 31 December 2003 would void any insurance policy in place, meaning that claims resulting from an insured event would not be met”. Sock it to them Stewart ! — The Lynx advert We reproduce below Stewart Kidd’s letter to OFCOM in respect of the misleading advert Dear Sirs. Complaint over Misleading Advertisement: Faberge Lynx I am writing to you to express concern at the mis -portrayal of automatic fire sprinkler systems in the captioned tv commercial. In this film, a sprinkler system is shown being correctly actuated by a fire in a hotel bedroom, but then for no clear reason (and totally technically implausibly) the sprinkler system is shown operating throughout the building. One of the major obstacles to wider acceptance of sprinkler systems is the misconception that if one sprinkler head senses fire, then all the heads in the building will operate causing flooding. I have, when Director of the Fire Protection Association, previously brought this fact to the attention of C4 (Twin Peaks), the BBC (One Foot in the Grave and Casualty) and the former ITA/ASA (advertisements for Martini and cinema trailers for Die Hard) as these depictions of sprinklers counter the extensive work being done by the fire service, local authorities and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in educating the public in the value of sprinkler systems. Sprinklers have a worldwide reputation as the most effective way of preventing fire deaths, reducing damage to property and minimising the impact of fire on the environment and thoughtless parodies like this risk serious harm to the broader acceptance of the technology by the groups most at risk from fire deaths. I understand that a number of chief fire officers have written directly to Faberge with similar comments. While my association appreciates there is little that can be done now the advertisement has been aired I do believe that you have a duty to caution the advertiser, his agency and the IT companies not to repeat the advertisement and make it clear the harm they are causing. May I also, on a more positive note offer the services of this association to anyone who is thinking of using sprinklers in a tv programme so we can ensure that these are properly depicted ? Stewart Kidd Many members and Fire chiefs also wrote to OFCOM in a similar manner
Protecting Property, Life and the Environment Newsletter No 17 Page 17 Unsprinklered Fires (Fires that could have been avoided if sprinklers were fitted) Two elderly people died following a fire in care home near St. Neots in Cambridgeshire. 30 residents and 10 staff were led from the building. The fire caused severe smoke damage despite being confined to one room. This was the third fatal fire in a care home in the U.K. this year and it came a week after the government published a report on the ODPM web site which shows that there is a strong economic case to fit fire sprinkler systems in care homes. Prison fires A fire recently at a German prison near Frankfurt once again brings home the potential risks of prison fires. At the time of the fire the prisoners were in their cells so there was no risk of a breakout. Over 250 fire fighters fought the fire. The town water supply was inadequate. The actions of the fire brigades limited the fire to one fire compartment. Nevertheless the damage ran to millions of euros. Deliberate fires in prisons are a recognised hazard that can cause huge damage and create security risks. A few years ago the new Yarl’s Wood Asylum Centre in the UK was burned to the ground with tens of millions of pounds of damage. Special fire sprinklers have been developed for prisons and other high security detention centres. They are known as institutional sprinklers and are designed to break if someone tries to hang themselves from the sprinkler. Many prisons in North America are protected by these sprinklers. Fire Destroys Part of Saatchi Art Collection Fire broke out on 24 June in an east London warehouse storing art belonging to Charles Saatchi. The fire started in an adjoining building, which was totally destroyed, and spread through 38 units. London Fire Brigade spokesman Gary Bevan said, “This was a very intense fire, black smoke and a red glow could be seen from miles away.” Over 100 works by artists including Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst and Jake and Dinos Chapman, were lost. The Chapman brothers work Hell, commissioned by Saatchi for a reported £500,000 was among the £millions of losses. Fire in Telecoms Tunnel On 29 March a fire in a telecommunications tunnel in Manchester left 130,000 customers without a telephone line or internet service. It took days to restore full service. Businesses were unable to operate as the local economy was brought to a standstill. Although most emergency services have radio connections, the public were not able to make calls to them. In Manchester the ambulance service radio connection was also disrupted. Fire-fighters had to climb down 30 metres and then crawl 150 metres to reach the fire. Although the f ire was not fierce, the fire-fighters needed breathing apparatus and were using a lot of air before they reached the fire, so there was a high turnover of fire-fighters. All the recent attention on tunnel fires has focussed on road tunnels. However we depend on many types of tunnels, as this incident shows. The tunnel operator, BT, has recently fitted a fire suppression system in another tunnel. It is likely following this fire that other infrastructure providers who use tunnels will reassess the impact that a tunnel fire could have on their service Huge fire at a cardboard packaging factory in Eerbeek, The Netherlands. 36 fire trucks attended and the smoke could be seen 15 kilometres away . Two thirds of the factory was destroyed. The cause of the fire has not yet been confirmed. The fire was at the Austrian cardboard packaging company Mayr-Melnhof on Coldenhovenseweg. The company employs 250 people at this site. It confirmed that three cutting machines and a packing line were destroyed, as well as many raw materials and a part of the coating department. Fortunately none of the employees were hurt. The factory was not protected by a sprinkler system, except for a recent extension which is the only section that was saved. Two die in Swedish bar fire Fire broke out in the bar of the Borgholm Hotel on the holiday island of Öland in southeast Sweden and a Norwegian man and a Swedish woman died. Four more guests suffered minor injuries and an employee and three fire-fighters suffered from smoke inhalation. Over 50 fire-fighters battled the blaze which destroyed a large part of the hotel. Witnesses said that the smoke detectors operated. . Belfast Shopping Arcade destroyed by fire A Belfast shopping arcade listed as architecturally significant may have to be pulled down following a fire . Shops throughout the North Street Arcade were destroyed. Nobody was hurt but sadly all the pets in a pet shop were killed. Dozens of people had to be evacuated from nearby pubs and flats and North Street itself was closed to traffic for a week. Fire crews fought the fire from both ends of the arcade in what Chief Fire Officer Colin Lammey described as a major operation. Assistant Divisional Fire Officer Isaac King said he thought the fire had been burning for some time before the alarm was raised. The North Street Arcade was built in the 1930s but may now have to be pulled down because it is structurally unsafe. Goodyear suffers loss On Wednesday 10 March fire broke out in a storage area of the Goodyear tyre factory in Philippsburg, near Karlsruhe in the south of Germany. Over 400 fire-fighters attended and with massive use of foam and water had extinguished the fire by the afternoon. The 1,000 m2 warehouse and its stock of 20,000 tyres were lost. The warehouse carried intermediate storage for the production unit. The fire services were able to save the production unit and the main warehouse, which contains over 2 million tyres. A Goodyear company s pokesperson estimated the damage at well over €10 million. The German fire service association, vfdb, reports that this storage unit was fitted with a fire sprinkler system but that it had been designed to protect the area when it was used for production. With the change in use to storage of tyres the sprinkler system was not upgraded to cope with the increased fire load. It is essential that sprinkler systems are regularly inspected and maintained to make sure that they remain adequate for the risk and ready to operate to protect it. The importance of carrying out risk assessments/ hazard reviews is once again highlighted ! Huge Fire in fruit warehouse The Spanish newspaper El Mundo reports that 120 people were evacuated when fire took hold in fruit warehouses in Mercabana, Barcelona. The fire broke out in Frutas Félix, apparently caused by welding operations. Five fruit and vegetable distribution company premises with a combined area of 4000 m2 were destroyed or damaged. The losses are estimated to be in the millions of euros. Fortunately nobody was hurt. Fruit boxes are often made of wood and present a high fire load which can rapidly develop into a large fire. Alternatively the boxes are made of plastic, which can melt and create a liquid pool fire. Without a fire sprinkler system this risk is very vulnerable to fire. 3 Die in Spanish apartment fire On the same day that terrorists killed over 200 people in Madrid, fire continued its annual claim of 250 Spanish lives. Three young children died in an apartment in Lleida in the northeast of the country. The children were left unattended at the time. The fire started on the ground floor of and quickly rose through the first and second floors of the three storey building.
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