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New Website Drives Sprinkler Message Home In the movie, a fire starts in the living room during the night while the family is sleeping. One minute later, the smoke alarm activates. The homeowner wakes up, doesn’t smell smoke until going down the stairs, then reaches the first floor to see smoke in the living room and the curtains on fire. Heat activates the fire sprinkler and the fire is controlled about two minutes after it starts. Then, the clock displayed at the top of the screen stops and reverses to when the smoke alarm activates. The movie replays the same home fire without sprinkler protection. In less than five minutes, the fire spreads until it reaches "flashover" and the entire living room is engulfed in flames, before firefighters arrive at the scene. According the Gary Keith, HFSC chair, the movie was developed to make fire timeline information more realistic. "For years, we’ve used charts and data to educate people about how quickly a house fire spreads. The photos and sound effects used in this presentation bring that information to life," Keith said. The movie also shows how dark and deadly the smoke in a house fire can be. "We want viewers to understand that it is the smoke that kills," Keith said. "Even though the fire started in the living room, thick poisonous smoke spreads throughout the house. You can’t see anything when the house is filled with smoke. While the clock is ticking and the fire spreads, people in the house are blinded by smoke while they try to escape. The best way to control the development of smoke is to control the development of fire with a sprinkler." |
