And you thought some of the English building regs were OTT?

[Hugo Nebula]

The water damage from a single sprinkler head is a LOT less than from out a hose or two.

[Hugo Nebula]

Sprinklers are a purely 'mechanical' system. They have a small glass bulb with a liquid inside that breaks at 68-degrees C. This opens the way for water to spray via a sprinkler head. It's only the head or heads heated by the fire that operates. They have been proven to be a very reliable system with only one (non-moving) part.

The scenario in movies & TV where a person holds a lighter to a sprinkler head and sets off all the sprinklers is impossible.

[Tim Streater]

OK. This is starting to sound more sensible.

[John Rumm]

Does rather depend on if there is someone there to catch it. A whole 40 gal tank dumped into one room will do a fair amount of damage (worse if its not on the ground floor)

[dennis]

Why? It would be easy to make them all operate when the pump starts in a stored water pumped system.

[Alan]

In message , "dennis@home" wrote

Pump? What is the most common thing to fail to start when people switch on their central heating system after 6 months of non-use? On average, your sprinkler system would probably sit there for 1000+ years before being activated and the pump starting up.

[NT]

just sprinklers on a pipe, but no storage tank or upgrading of mains supply.

NT

[Hugo Nebula]

Yes, but only in Hollywood. That's the same place where you can crawl through three foot tall ducts from one flat to another without fire dampers, and walk the entire length of a city through twenty foot tall sewer pipes.

[Hugo Nebula]

[ARWadsworth]

The should be fixed temperature. Opening oven doors activates the rate of rise ones.

[ARWadsworth]

Where as I only had to crawl though 3 foot underground ducting linking all the buildings at St Catherines hospital to pull in the SWA for the sump pumps:-)

[dennis]

well look at the sprinkler tanks stuck outside places and think how they get the water up and out of the sprinklers without a pump.

[Terry Fields]

I used to work at an organisation that was very keen on safety, including fire safety.

They used to light a large tray of petrol, and get to put it out with a CO2 extinguisher, including trying it with one that had ho horn (which was spectacular).

Then the greenies came along and wouldn't let petrol be burned, or CO2 extinguishers be discharged, and it all went to sleep-inducing lectures instead.

Terry Fields

[Alan]

In message , Terry Fields wrote

These days the advice is NOT to fight the fire but remove yourself from the danger as fast as possible.

One reason why most car extinguishers would be more dangerous than running away.

[Andy Champ]

Ah, what you do then is use a gravity fed system.

Of course the tank will have to be in a water tower 10ft above the roof, with its own internal heating system in case of frost...

Andy

[Tim Watts]

One of the Unis in London runs excellent courses - but as you say, petrol is frowned upon. So they have these nifty burners that pass gas through water and burn it on top - in a variety of metal boxes that emulate liquite fires, bin fires and others.

Seems to work quite well as it actually proves quite hard to put out the "liquid" fire - needed a concerted sweep with a major portion of a CO2 extinguisher to achieve.

[Tim Lamb]

I thought foam was best for oil fires.

regards

[Tim Watts]

I believe that is the case - but the fire officer got us to try all types with all fire types to see what the differences were. CO2 was a *lot* of fun :)

[Alan]

In message , tony sayer wrote

I doubt if it was water. The fire fighting will have been geared to the event and car fuel fires. There may have also been some driver error as there should have been a shut off mechanism to stop the fuel leaving the fuel tank.

All the people fighting the fire were in fireproof clothing, as was the driver of the car. The first two marshals at the scene also wear fireproof balaclavas when the cars are running more exotic fuels.

The main fire fighting vehicles are down the other end of the track (quarter of a mile away) where there is more of a chance of an engine letting go at 300+ miles per hour. (the car in the video probably accelerates to 200+ mph in around 6.5 seconds).

[Andy Champ]

I'm guessing that's some exotic fuel mix, probably with nitrous in it. Burn much better than petrol...

Andy