I got a response from the author of yesterday's article at The State; he included a link to another story that ran in the Charleston Post and Courier. It's a fair and comprehensive summary of several issues, including codes and sprinklers. Except for the local water district charging $52K for a 6" service lateral, it's almost encouraging.
I don't know if the link will stay hot as it passes through the Forum server, but you can cut and paste. Steve Leyton PROTECTION DESIGN & CONSULTING -----Original Message----- From: Ryan, Jason [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2007 12:22 PM To: Steve Leyton Subject: RE: Fire sprinklers and The Sofa Super Store Steve, Thanks for the note. We are obtaining fire inspection reports to learn more about the building and any citations. We hope to learn more about sprinkler requirments for that building, too, given its age and that it had been renovated. As you noted, I was just reporting comments made regarding the effectivness of sprinklers. Here's an article from the Charleston paper about some of the issues you mention: http://www.charleston.net/news/2007/jun/21/lack_sofa_store_sprinkler_sys tem_prompts_debate_/. Sincerely, Jason -----Original Message----- From: Steve Leyton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2007 12:08 PM To: Ryan, Jason Subject: Fire sprinklers and The Sofa Super Store Jason: It appears that you were quoting others either directly or by composite in your article. However the statement, "Given the swiftness and ferocity of the furniture-fueled fire, officials speculated, the extra water might not have mattered" is patently inaccurate and an unfortunate blemish on an article that is otherwise well-written. I encourage you to do a follow-up article after researching this issue further. You will find that the "extra water" could and most certainly WOULD have contained or extinguished this fire in its incipient (formative) stage and that this catastrophe should have been avoided. The local building official made a judgmental error in allowing this occupancy to take over an old grocery store shell without a fire sprinkler retrofit. There are fire sprinklers designed SPECIFICALLY to control or extinguish this type of high challenge fire; one where foams and other plastics and synthetics are stored in fairly dense arrays that are spread out enough to allow oxygen to flow easily into the burning commodity. Full scale fire testing has repeatedly shown that high-density sprinkler systems are +95% effective at containing fires in storage racks - including furniture racks - even when the fire begins at a lower level and there are obstructions to the sprinkler discharge from above. The fire protection industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in R&D to develop sprinklers for just this type of fire. This technology is not inexpensive, and that is why building and business owners aren't proactive about voluntarily putting this level of protection into their buildings. Building and fire officials often must deal with the political backlash over requirements for this type of upgrade and often the business community's objections are given precedence. The key point is that 9 valiant firefighters lost their lives because a chain of decisions was made by others, likely based on economics and the badly flawed, "It won't happen to me" theory. THAT should be the focus of your next story. Best wishes, Stephen M. Leyton PROTECTION DESIGN & CONSULTING San Diego, CA Ph: 858-751-2930 Fax: 858-751-2933 Cell: 619-972-5696 _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field)
