http://statter911.com/2009/12/26/the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving-the-grinch-arrived-on-christmas-day-but-he-was-sent-packing-by-a-residential-sprinkler-system/#comments
Here’s a Christmas tale worth retelling, sent by email from Chief Greg
Jakubowski of the Lingohocken Fire Company in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. With
a nod to Dr. Seuss, we shall call it How the Residential Sprinkler System Saved
Christmas. Maybe it will be told all through the land each holiday and
legislative season:
A few minutes before 1 pm on Christmas Day, several dozen firefighters from the
Lingohocken and Warwick Fire Cos. (Bucks County, PA Stations 35, 95 and 66)
were dispatched to a home in the 3100 block of Rushland Road in Wrightstown
Township for a report of a fire in an attached garage of a 3-year old house. An
accidental fire had ignited in some storage in the garage and began to spread.
There were 2 cars in the 3-bay garage, including a Ford Escape and a Mercedes
CLK 320. Normally, this incident would require deploying all of these
firefighters, and perhaps more, for 1-2 hours to control and fully extinguish
the fire, which would have likely spread to the storage, vehicles, and tools in
the garage, and possibly to the master bedroom located directly above the
garage. The home is located in an area that would require firefighters to truck
water in, as there are no hydrants nearby. Damage most likely would have been
in the hundreds of thousands of
dollars, and the residents would have likely had to relocate for weeks while
their home was being repaired.
However, thanks to the foresight of the Wrightstown Township supervisors, and
the efforts of the fire marshal’s office in Wrightstown, this home was equipped
with residential sprinklers, including in the garage area. One sprinkler
activated, fully extinguishing the fire prior to the fire department’s arrival,
7 minutes after the call. Instead of 30-40 firefighters being in service for
several hours, a single crew of 6 firefighters was able to check for extension
(there was none) and remove the damaged items from the house. A 2 liter soda
bottle that was half full and located 2 feet from the point of origin, had
partially melted, but never spilled the soda. The contents of the garage
suffered several thousand dollars of damage, a far cry from the damage without
sprinklers. There were no injuries to the residents, nor to firefighters. The
volunteer firefighters returned to celebrate the holiday with their families in
under 45 minutes, and the homeowner
and his family were able to finish their celebration in their home after a bit
of cleanup.
Pennsylvania is the first state in the country to adopt new model codes that
require sprinklers in all new townhouses that will be built after January 1,
2010, and all new residences built after January 1, 2011. Several Bucks County
communities already have their own ordinances in place – and these sprinklers
are saving lives and property right now in these communities
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