News and Press

On Monday 14th September a fire occurred in the kitchen of a flat in a Croydon flat when a tea towel, placed too near to a toaster, caught fire. The occupier , an elderly gentleman, was asleep in his living room at the time. The sprinkler head actuated in the kitchen area, extinguished the fire and alerted staff via the alarm  system activated by the sprinkler flow switch. Staff who attended managed to safely evacuate the occupant from the smoke filled flat.

London Fire Brigade crews attended and isolated the sprinkler system but there were  no fire-fighting measures required. A sprinkler engineer  attended later that day to replace the head. The home manager, Mrs Christina Sande, remarked that it appears that the sprinklers may have potentially saved this gentleman's life.

Truscott House is an "Extra Care" Sheltered Scheme which is owned by the London  Borough of  Croydon and was the first of six such schemes in Croydon to have been retro-fitted with sprinklers. This was following London Fire Brigade safety visits prompted concerns regarding the number of vulnerable residents in some of the schemes in the Borough.

 This 'save' demonstrates how effective partnership working between FRS and Housing Providers can be in protecting vulnerable occupants, and the clear advantages of fitting suppression systems in such cases.

On Friday 14th November a chip pan fire occurred at an apartment block at Waterside Heights, Lewisham, London. The tenant is reported to have tried to move the blazing chip pan but due to the heat was unable to keep hold causing the pan and contents spilled.

Fortunately, one sprinkler head in the room activated and extinguished the fire. Fire damage was limited so that the flat remained habitable and though the tenant was shocked they fortunately suffered no serious injury.

The incident above once again shows, contrary to some understanding, that sprinklers CAN safely and efficiently deal with chip pan fires.

At about 21:00 on Wednesday 26th March, a fire occurred on a cooking appliance in a ground floor flat of a two storey residential block of 33 maisonettes in Redhill, Surrey.

The fire started while to occupier was melting wax in a saucepan in order to recycle candles. One VK457 concealed sprinkler head, fed by mains water supply operated to control the fire, which was extinguished within an estimated 3 minutes.

About 8 m² of the property was affected by the fire and neither of the two occupants were reported hurt in the incident.

Surrey F&RS attended with one pumping appliance but no fire-fighting action was apparently required.

An incident occurred on the 21st February 2014 at the home of an 82 year old lady that smoked and lived alone. She had hoarding tendencies and lived in one room of her property. Due to the nature of her condition she kept everything including cigarette butts in a bag, a fire in which was the cause of the sprinkler activation.

The lady was identified as being at risk and after gaining her trust she agreed to have the system fitted on 10 April 2012. She also had a variety of other interventions installed, including Fire retardant thclearfixs.

Without doubt this sprinkler activation saved her life on this occasion, and even though there was a little water damage she was very grateful.

It must be noted that the rapport that our Advocate built with this lady over the years became apparent after this incident as she stated that she only trusts three people in her life and he was one of them which allowed us to carry out further interventions after the incident and thinned down some of the fire loading in the property.

Note: Sprinklers automatically spray fine water droplets which absorb heat much more quickly than a solid jet of water. This reduces the risk of a violent flare up during hot oil kitchen fires. There are several examples each year where sprinklers have safely suppressed such fires.